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Neighbour to the North here... why is voter suppression not something we hear about more often? The things I’m learning about how different regions deny people their right to vote are shocking. I don’t mean to be rude but it’s embarrassing to see your country, which prides itself on being a pillar of democracy, be plagued by such blatant violations of democracy. And yet we rarely hear about it... this is the first time in my life I’ve heard about it, but other issues have been on the table forever.

Canada has had some voter suppression issues too in Quebec. I remember there being a lot of news coverage regarding their blatant suppression of young minority voters during the last election. I hope one day the rules allowing Quebec officials to do this will be removed.

On one side, you have the exact name rule in Georgia and the no PO Box rule in North Dakota. Both of those measures actively disenfranchise voters of color. And while the GA law is underhanded, there is no way anyone could ever justify the ND law.

On the other hand, there were long lines for voting at the University of Illinois-Urbana and in Riverdale, a higher income community in the Bronx. These largely had to do with staffing and machine problems, but some people are quick to call them voter suppression.

Elections in the US are not the nightmare the internet would have you believe. The GA and ND situations are huge problems, but lots of elections are well run.

Why do people freak out over making people show ID to vote? Isn't this common sense? I walked in to vote today (for the first time in 30+ years) and I told them my name and then they asked for my address and then checked me off a list and said "ok." I was like...how do you know it's me? And the lady (almost ashamedly) said they don't/can't check ID. WHAT THE HECK?? I could go back in simple disguises and say I'm my neighbor and easily vote 5 times! I could also do this in a new district by driving 3 miles in any direction! All I would need are names and addresses. Why don't they check ID?

Voter ID laws are a form of voter suppression. Requiring voters to have a photo ID, such as a driver's license, is a form of poll tax, since you have to pay in order to get said ID. One should be able to vote regardless of whether or not they can afford an ID. Additionally, we've seen states like Alabama use voter ID legislation to suppress black voters by closing 31 driver's license offices in 2015, in Alabama's "black belt" (several counties with predominantly black populations).

I wouldnt necessarily call voter I'd laws a form of suppression. Alot of more liberal western democracies have them. This issue is when Republicans implement any voter laws, including ID, they constantly suppress the vote, and then play the idiot in how its affecting turnout. Also the issue is alot of time voter ID doesn't mean a license. In Wisconsin for example if you have proof of residency, a state ID, and you social security card, you still cant vote....you need a passport or birth certificate, which as you said is just a back handed poll tax. If Republicans actually cared about the integrity of the election vs suppress votes I think we could actually have voter ID laws which are sensible and free to those without means. Of course though they really only have one goal implementing these laws.

In Wisconsin for example if you have proof of residency, a state ID, and you social security card, you still cant vote

I agree with you on the theory, but this actually isn't true. A WI state ID is a valid form of voter ID. The issue is that it's really hard to get a state ID if you don't have a copy of your birth certificate, which is almost impossible to get without an ID. And that's before you get into issues of DMV locations, wait times, etc.

I mostly agree, however imo if you are required by the state to have an ID to vote, the state needs to make them free and easily accessible. I think anything that could potentially dissuade or outright prevent someone from voting is a form of suppression, I think voting is a right within a democracy and should not be oppressed in anyway. (Fuck any legislation requiring proof of residency to register to vote).

you would have to register to vote in all those districts and would be immediately caught if there were any reason to review the votes (eg, if the election was close). voter fraud is high effort, low impact, easily detected, and has enormous consequences (it's a felony). this is why, though it is technically possible to do, it occurs at a near-zero level across the nation.

the reason people don't like the id requirement is that there are a lot of people who have EVERY RIGHT to vote but might not have a drivers license (old people, people who live in a dense urban area, the indigent, etc), and so the id requirement prevents them from voting without doing anything to prevent voter fraud (because voter fraud doesn't exist). it is a manufactured problem used as a justification to disenfranchise voters.

That scenario has been researched and there is no evidence that it happens or will happen at any meaningful scale.

There is no such thing as a mandatory citizenship/federal ID in the US and courts have ruled that undue identification verification is contrary to the spirit of one's voting rights. The definition of "undue" varies by state, but even states that require ID will let you vote and may count your vote depending on state rules.

People 'freak out' because research has shown that ID laws and the propaganda around them has a suppressive effect on voter turnout.

The issue doesn’t impact most of us that have drivers licenses. It impacts people they do not have an ID, or a reason to get one. If you were to go and vote as 5 of your neighbors, that would be voter fraud and you would be breaking the law. There are 2 schools of thought on voter ID requirements, one is what you said, why does it matter, why not show your ID? The other is that many people live a much different life, take public transportation, and have no need for a state ID. Voter fraud was never really an issue, making an ID a requirement was considered by many to be voter suppression by adding extra requirements to vote.

Kind of hard to get IDs when Republicans shut down or restrict DMVs in minority areas. It also makes it a bit more difficult to vote when Republicans get rid of voting places in minority areas and those near college campuses.

Nah, it’s not voter suppression if the only DMV is 50 miles away and open 3 days a month. And it’s just a coincidence we shut down the DMVs (and polling stations so there’s a 4 hour long line) in areas with a lot of Black people. Just a coincidence. /s

That and they only allow certain types of ID, like school ID's wont get accepted in some areas so the the younger generation can't vote. it's lots of little jabs here and there together that make the difference. you don't need to block 50% of the the votes, that would be to obvious. a lot of these states are being one by less than 100k votes and that what everyone estimated was amount denied their ability to vote.

Because the government doesn't issue free photo identification cards. Imagine you can't afford a car, let alone a license. You can't afford college, so you have no student ID. What do you use as photo ID?

Because citizens with the right to vote can be in this situation, we can't require photo ID. It would be easily remedied if the government did issue free ID.

If one uses welfare or medicaid, does one need to produce an ID at some point? If this is true then the argument that ID=poll tax is a little skew. I am not American so I don't know. In my country everybody has a government issued ID which you can't do anything with (apply for bank accounts, vote, apply for welfare etc.) and we have a hisg Gini coefficient score (extreme poor - like 3rd world less than a $1 a day and billionaires living side by side), South Africa.

if you can’t afford $40 for and ID the cost of missing work for your four hour line and the gas to get your ID is probably difficult too. And yes you probably have other issues, because you’re probably poor. But because you’re poor you shouldn’t vote? And voting is fundamental and denying access to voting is despicable (and a time honored American tradition) and it’s a huge issues.

I'm not sure in which states it costs $40 dollars for an ID. The state I live in has an $8 dollar fee for an ID. If you can't afford gas for polls or don't have time, simply mail it in. Frankly, with the amount of money put solely into making it as easy as possible to vote, if you are still unable to vote, it isn't anyone's fault but your own. Nobody is denying access. There are simply protocols when voting to ensure the results are legitimate.

Because it's historically been used to prevent people from voting. (Specifically minorities.)

Also, not everyone has ID. ID can be expensive. In my pretty liberal state it's $40, and it may be a few hours by public transit (if even available) to the closest DMV to get it. They only just started taking cards. You aren't allowed to pay in cash. And it takes two weeks for your ID to be mailed to you.

In 1845, the United States was largely an agrarian society. Farmers often needed a full day to travel by horse-drawn vehicles to the county seat to vote. Tuesday was established as election day because it did not interfere with the Biblical Sabbath or with market day, which was on Wednesday in many towns.

So basically because they didn't want farmers driving buggies on the sabbath. But now? Tradition.

To translate for the above comment... voting in Australia happens on Saturdays and voting stations are located at primary schools (elementary schools?). Most primary schools will run a “sausage sizzle” as a fundraiser for the school. A sausage sizzle is where sausages are cooked on a BBQ and served either on a piece of white bread (traditional) or in a hot dog bun (fancy), often with BBQ onions as an option on top and DIY tomato sauce or mustard. When sold on Election Day from a primary school, a sausage sizzle is referred to as a “democracy sausage” and there are online maps to find your local suppliers of democracy sausages.

You can mail in ballots or early vote any time before the election up to a certain date.

People who cry about voter suppression are usually people who have no idea how the voting system works. You get notifications pretty much year round if you want. They have to have a system in place to keep people from voting in more than one place so you have to register to vote.

Tuesday is the last day, which gives you three days before the weekend to validate the vote and do recounts before the weekend.

Oh hey, same! I have a 19 month old son who was thrashing about in the ballot box with me. He tagged along in utero when I went to the DC women's march the day after the inauguration. Hope your little future activist is inspired by you!

Went with my nine year old brother and my mom, and my brother was upset that they wouldn’t let him vote with us. Plus he was pretty outspoken against trump during the 2016 election (how he managed that with my conservative parents I’ll never know)

I always bring my daughter. For the first time today we had an hour and 15 min wait. Luckily there was some other kids there so she had fun playing. Schools are closed on election day because so many of them are polling places. We talk about how important it is to vote and proudly wear our stickers all day.

My polling station is in a gymnasium at a local church. I let my 3 year old carry my ballot to the little table thing and instead he bolted from me and took a little victory lap around half the gymnasium with me whispering threats while chasing him lol 🙈

I live in a swing state and typically vote Libertarian, but I'm so scared of Republican controlled EVERYTHING that I voted partially Democrat. Because I'm not throwing my vote away on the Libertarians this time, I do feel like my vote counts. We also have a decriminalization issue on my ballot and in the polls its half and half so I feel like my vote counts for that.

Thank you. There's definitely a time and place for agitating against the two-party system with idealistic votes (I'm anti-binary myself), now just ain't that time and I'm glad when third-party folks admit that.

My parents are very much on one end of the political spectrum. They had four kids. All of us are now adults on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Every single Election Day, we “cancel out” their votes +2. Whenever I start to wonder if my vote matters, I remember that if even just two of us decided to stay home, it would be a zero sum within the little microcosm of our family. I know it’s on a small scale, but it’s a good reminder that every single vote really does matter.

I live in Philadelphia, a big blue dot in a big stupid red state. I was #96 at my polling spot at 8:30 AM, which is crazy. Even if you're in a red state, showing up still makes you part of the wave.

(As someone who is low-key socialist--low-key in the sense that I'm not a radical socialist like some but ardently support medium-level socialism--I don't really love the Democrats but I'm happy to be a part of the Blue Wave against fascism. We can work on fixing the Democrats, or better yet get rid of the two-party system, after we take out the trash.)

That paragraph in parentheses says everything I'd need to get across as an overall reason why I voted the way I did. I personally believe we need to be a little socialist if we're going to live in a country that has 325M people and counting, we need to take care of 'em. And in the face of where capitalism is skyrocketing today, they need more help than ever.

​

I don't actually want to really debate about this with anyone lol, just stating why I'm also low-key socialist.

I voted on Friday. I live in Austin, TX and my district is gerrymandered as fuck. So I doubt the guy I voted for will win against the republican incumbent. I also voted for Beto, I’m pretty sure Ted Cruz will win, but it’ll be a really close call and maybe next time we can get him the hell out. Austin’s a pretty liberal city, so I think everyone else I voted for will win. It was worth a shot. Voting doesn’t cost you anything, just some time out of your day.

Well, I just moved out of Georgia in August. So I mailed my absentee ballot last week and it was guaranteed to arrive yesterday. But on My Voter Page, the status shows it still hasn't been counted or received. So, no, I don't feel like my vote counted because it literally hasn't. I'm a little bitter.

I’m in a red state, and voted for all Democrats. But you never know. The polls between the two candidates for Representative show the incumbent/Republican ahead by 4 points. This state has had surprises with wider margins than that.

Hell yeah man! The thing is I'm a liberal, like 70% of Americans, and if 100% of Americans voted the Republicans would never come close to a majority, in fact it would probably kill the two party system.

I voted in florida. I don't quite know. It seems that every vote i've ever made so far hasn't counted. I have high hopes this year as I've encouraged two non voters to make an educated vote. We have record turn out so far. We have 5 MILLION early votes apparently. Florida's usual early vote turnout is 2-3 million. So maybe this year will be different.

I don't know how anyone can ever feel like their vote doesn't count in Florida. Even if you're not old enough to remember the hanging chads, Bush won by the Presidency based on 537 votes in Florida.

CNN is showing that the Republicans are ahead in Florida right now (which is breaking my heart) but the difference is like 10,000 votes. That's a lot, but it's not that many people. 20 million people live in Florida. The numbers could easily swing hard left.

I live in a state that isn’t really consistently anything on a state level (Michigan) and I do feel my votes matter. It was also my first time voting and I was elated to use my voice. I voted almost straight ballot democrat. Almost no one in my family will vote the same, but I’m glad I could use my voice.

I live in a very blue state, so I don’t think my votes for Democrats made much difference except in one case where I voted against a senator who runs on the Democrat ticket but caucuses with the Republicans (love that NY is ok with this...). I voted for his actually-liberal opponent, who has no chance of winning but like you - at least I made my voice heard! I’m actually most interested in the city ballot measures since those aren’t guaranteed one way or the other like most candidates were.

When I relocated last year, I was trying to choose which state to set up residency in. Florida won because for the first time in over two decades, my vote will count! I’ve always lived in either solidly red or blue states, and my first time as a swing state voter was exhilarating!

When I relocated last year, I was trying to choose which statehood set up residency in. Florida won because for the first time in over two decades, my vote will count! I’ve always lived in either solidly red or blue states, and my first time as a swing state voter was exhilarating!

Now that you mention it, I didn't see any young people at mine, either. Probably wouldn't make much difference, since most younger people are Republican here, too. I am not in one of the more liberal parts of my state.

Happy to have voted today. The Candidates I had to vote for in my state are winning by fairly large margins and while I am please to be contributing to that the absence of my vote would not have mattered. There is a state wide ballot issue that is rather controversial and has not been more than a few hundred votes difference between yea or nae and has swapped a couple of times, I voted against it, but would not be upset or terribly disappointed if it passes. I had a hard time deciding how to vote on it myself...

I don’t expect my vote to “count” in the sense that Libertarians hardly ever win elections, but I was very happy that I had so many Libertarians to vote for! My biggest problem after the last big election was how many people were downright hateful to me bc of my third party vote. I don’t like being given two (shitty for me) options and then bullied into voting for one of them. Or being blamed for Trump having won. It’s not my fault the DNC didn’t put up a candidate I felt represented my values.

I don’t know if I can say I feel like my vote was heard. I think voter suppression tactics have been more successful than they ought to be. I don’t trust the computerized systems. I don’t like that I can’t confirm that my vote wasn’t thrown out for stupid reasons. I voted over a week ago. I had hopes that my candidate would flip and win, and it was heavily telegraphed for him to win, if not at least be close, but it’s already been called and not only did he not win, it wasn’t even close. Disappointing, to say the least. The winner is basically a female trump and proud of it. Gross....

Just so you know, the person responding to you wasn't me (the person you asked.)

Anyways, I vote Green because I believe in voting for the candidate who most reflects your values.

You're wrong in saying one vote makes a difference—statistically it is essentially mathematically impossible for a federal race to be decided by one vote. There has literally never, ever been a federal race decided by one vote.

Thank you for responding - it was a genuine question meant only for my understanding, zero criticism.

I guess the extension of the argument though is if 100 other people in your area thought that their 1 vote didn’t matter then it’s really the amount of votes received by the 3rd parties that could have made a difference in separating the big 2. With the stakes so high currently it’s also as highly charged as I can remember.

Yeah I totally get the "If everyone thought like you" argument to counter the idea that one action doesn't make a difference. In fact, that's why I vote Green—because if everyone thought like me, if everyone voted their conscience, instead of voting for the lesser evil out of fear of the greater evil winning, then maybe the Green Party would actually have a chance. I want to, you know, "be the change you want to see in the world."

My state made it a requirement that you had to vote in an election physically before being allowed to use a mail-in ballot in the next election. Which really sucks for a lot of new voters who happen to be both busy and young.

No, several states have it, including California where I live. I've filed as a "permanent mail ballot" receiver, so every election I get my ballot about a month early. I usually like to drop it off in person, however! But it's nice to have all that extra time to figure out my vote.

That might vary with different states, but mine needs an address just to be registered in the first place. Same for having driver's licenses, which can double as a registration center for voters. Now imagine why most voting centers decided that the only acceptable id for a person to use is their driver's license.

In Oregon, you don't need to use the address of property you own to register. Homeless people can use the address of something like a homeless shelter or a park. Come election time, they can vote at the county office if they are unable to receive mail. So possible, albeit difficult if you are homeless and can't easily get to a county clerk office.

Most states have absentee voting, which is sort of vote by mail. Although, I remember when I was in the Navy that there was a lot of issue with absentee votes not being counted in time or some bullshit and it makes me wary.

Cities rely heavily on publicly provided services and have larger bureaucracies which means more unionized employees. Unions have historically sided with Democrats.

Also, people who live in rural areas tend to have to fend for themselves since they don’t have public services and huge security forces. Therefore most are gun owning and don’t rely on heavy government programs, so they tend to be more Conservative. Why pay higher taxes if they don’t reap the benefits?

I'll add that in big cities there tends to be a diversity of people living in high density, so dealing with different cultures and points of view is a fact of life. Rural areas have much less diversity, so there's less need to wrestle with the challenges that come from accommodating the different cultures and points of view.

I would disagree slightly with the public provided services and fend for themselves points. Urban areas tend to have a net loss of tax money and rural areas a net gain. Unless you mean things like universities and bus systems? That more often serve urban areas. Then I totally see what youre saying.

I think the main difference is with issue voting and historical trends which defines how most people vote.

First. A lot of people are single issue voters and the parties align themselves this way. Like you said, gun ownship is much higher in rural areas. Republicans are in favor of protecting 2nd amendment rights. Rural areas are more religious. Republicans are pro life.

Second (which sort passed on the first) Urban areas have (in general) higher percentages of ethnic minorites and people tertiary degrees, who usually vote Democrat for a variety of reasons. And the reverse for rural areas and Republicans.

The relative diversity of urban areas may play a role as well especially with immigration. A lot political is about defining us verses them. For example, I grew up in an urban area that was majority minority (roughly 30-30-30 split between Hispanic, Asian, and White with a large immigrant population) most of my peers strongly identified with migrants because we were all either the friends of, children of, or themselves immigrants (including DREAMer kids).

This isn't trying to argue a point, but explaining how the urban environment I grew up in shaped my bias toward a particular political opinion.

I think the person you were replying to was implying infrastructures like public transportation, access to programs and organizations, etc. when they said publicly provided. That’s how I took it at least and I just wanted to say that all of you in this thread from the OP are really polite and objective in your replies to why rural tends to equal Republican and urban/metros tend to be Democratic. Well done all around.

There’s a lot that could be said about that. One that I’ve seen that hasn’t been listed yet is rural definitely tends to have a much higher Christian population (anywhere from 60%-99%), whereas in urban areas that population is almost non-existent (5%-45% depending on where you are in the states). Beliefs are absolutely huge to most people on how they vote.

For example, had time and did some double checking, Portland which currently is the least religious city is sitting at around 25% religious, 15-20% could be contributed to Christianity depending who you ask. Now this is the metropolitan area as a whole. There are voting districts and communities in Portland that fall down to ~5% Christian. San Francisco is pretty similar with the above numbers, except in San Fran there are communities and therefore voting districts that actually are <5% Christian. You’ll see similar but slightly higher percentages than this all across the West Coast and the New England/North East area.

I'm still kind of confused. I mean, they may not be conservative Christians, but I would assume almost all of them come from a Christian background. They don't say they're from a Christian denomination if asked?

Plus a lot of the most liberal urban areas have a high black and Latino population, and they're more Christian than average.

Depends who you ask. Urban might be higher in college educated people but they are also by far higher in people that haven’t completed high school. This could be because urban areas obviously attract jobs so they get their college people, but housing prices are also low so they attract non-GED people who might not afford anything otherwise.

In my experience, if you dislike a certain demographic, you can avoid it in rural areas, not so in Urban ones.

To give an example that's not such a hot-button issue today: in the early-20th century when women's fashion was changing and their roles in society changed to, that was a fact you had to live with in cities, whereas out in the middle of nowhere, all you had to do was keep your own family from changing, and if the closest neighbor was a mile away, you never had to confront those changes.

It also likely has something to do with the sort of advertising audience they cultivate.

EDIT: This was my personal experience and in no way indicative of all (or even any but mine) rural communities.

This is the opposite of the truth. I grew up in a fairly poor area in the Deep South, and we all lived on top of each other. Black, white, Hispanic - we all lived and played together. You see the segregated areas in suburbia, not in rural areas.

Rural areas tend to be conservative simply bc there is a deep distrust of 1) the government and 2) ‘big city liberals’ in general. It’s been that way for 200 years.

It also depends on your location generally. I grew up in a Houston suburb, and my school was in a relatively wealthy district. We had more "minorities" than white kids, mostly due to the jobs in the area: oil and gas, chemicals and shipping, engineering, NASA, colleges. I grew up with a LOT of first and second generation Americans from all over the world thanks to the international nature of the work here. Add in some clever districting for half our school being "lower income" (not really, considering) and we had a lot of Vietnamese, Hispanic, and black kids too.

Basically, I was the only white girl on my block growing up in affluent suburbs. That is NOT the case in most 'burbs.

I also relate to people getting stereotype-y about the South. Yeah, it has a LOT of problems, but not everywhere. It's a 50/50 red/blue split more or less, so remember that means half the people ARE progressive.

Not in terms of culture. You go to a Cubs game, you at least SEE different types of people and cultures. You might have to drive through the ghettos. You might encounter a homeless person. It's segregated in a lot of ways, but you're still exposed to more.

In rural areas, there are people alive today who have literally encountered 500 people in their entire lives. Their small town and that's it. If you live in rural Arkansas, not only is your city almost entirely one race, but also one religion, one occupation, one culture. You might never see a homeless person. You might not believe people in cities can be poor, and think that they have government money for everything. You might think gay people are out to rape men and steal babies. You might think everyone who gets pregnant can support a kid, because it's not as big of a deal when you have land and neighbors and a garden. You might think all Muslims are evil foreign terrorists, because you've never met Arjun at the local deli.

It's about exposure, and urban areas cram more into smaller space, so you encounter it, even if you don't engage. This means people have more world experience and, potentially, more empathy.

You might think all Muslims are evil foreign terrorists, because you've never met Arjun at the local deli.

Hi, i am mostly ignorant about everything else in your post, as I am from India. However, you should know that Arjun isnt a Muslim name, it's a Hindu or Buddhist or Jain name. A Muslim would never use it as Arjun as a Hindu myth/story refers to a person and Muslims aren't allowed to idealize any person not allah.

Okay? That's interesting? I mean, I get that there are traditions, but it's odd to try to correct people about what is culturally "right" when the entire point is that the US is incredibly diverse. My friend is not a deli owner like my example, but went to college with me, is now actually involved in politics, is actually a very devout Muslim, and is also gay (not an easy journey for him, at all) but he has kept his faith despite of it. To say his name, that his devout parents gave him, is "wrong" when he's proven his faith in the face of massive adversity just strikes me as very rude. What does it matter? His name could be JimBob and my point still stands.

One is that cities typically have universities, and university students are generally very liberal. Similarly, there are more college educated people living in cities, and people qith college degrees tend to lean liberal. Large cities are also frequently technology hubs, which attract even more college educated people.

Could be that rural areas are more likely to be farmed and farmers with subsidy crops (corn, wheat, soy, etc) are more likely to be conservative. I don’t have any citation...just my understanding from working in agriculture and some study of its economics.

To elaborate: they would successfully impeach him, (impeachment is just a fancy word for "accusation," and only requires a simple majority vote in the House) but a conviction requires a 2/3 majority in the Senate, which will never happen, barring something that causes Republicans to flip en masse. And given what they've managed to excuse so far, that's unlikely.

That’s correct; that’s why Democrats aren’t running on a platform of impeachment. Instead, they’re running for a platform of investigation, where investigative committees are free to do their job (which may mean more indictments among Trump’s staff). A Democrat majority in the house means they have control of these committees and what they are allowed to investigate.

I wouldn't say the only silver lining. The Senate was a long shot just because the seats that were up for election were tough races. One silver lining was the slim margins in areas that are not only very Republican, but also very gerrymandered so they were an up hill battle x2. This means there was indeed a "blue wave", the flood walls were just built higher. Democrats also paved the way for other candidates to run on platforms that are more progressive and not just more moderate Republican platforms.

The silver lining is that healthcare, immigration, and whatever the fuck else Trump and co. want to destroy are now protected because they will not be able to pass any legislation that would destroy it. That, to me, is the big win. We have effectively voted to protect Americans, which is what matters.

It wasn't perfect and my heart aches for Beto O'Rourke, Andrew Gillum and Stacy Abrams, but we fucking did what we needed to do.

I mean, there's also the fact that any legislation has to pass both House and Senate before it gets to the President. The Democrats may not be able to get rid of Trump, but they can limit how much of his agenda is able to get through.

Also, incumbency advantage gives them a better chance to hold onto the House in 2020, when they have a better chance of also taking the Senate. At worst, that would mean that you'd have a House and Senate actually able and willing to take him out. If he's ousted (God, I hope), then the incoming president would also have both houses and maybe be able to get something done.

I just don’t really get how though. No matter how many people I see shitting on trump I’ve seen a few defend him. I have never seen someone defend ted Cruz. The minority who support him seems to be so small I don’t see how he’s even a candidate

Unfortunately not just a district for Cruz, he's a Senator so it's the entire state. While a lot of urban areas are going for Beto, suburban Texas is still solidly red. Doesn't matter if they don't support Ted Cruz himself, they still support Republicans. A lot of people just vote straight ticket here. Guns is the biggest issue for sure, I even know some liberal folks who wouldn't vote for Beto because he supports more background checks and whatnot for gun ownership. tl;dr: Texas sucks and I'm gonna go get another drink.

Right now, Cruz has 2,773,741 counted voted compared to 2,764,830 for Beto. Votes are obviously still being counted and Beto could still win.

This is amazing considering Donnelly and Bredesen have more or less lost. But it is also frustrating because the Republicans may still hold the Senate. Maybe the focus on Beto could have been spread out to some less glamorous Senate candidates in other states.

Polls close in TX at 8pm EST, so hopefully you’ll be able to start seeing solid results on the news coming out just after that.

As the other person said, it could take awhile to declare a winner because each precinct reports as they can (and if there are lines, they could be staying open to accommodate voters who were in line before closing time), so that could extend things to.

Basically the earlier you hear a winner reported, the more of a margin they had, because it does take awhile to get eevvvverything in.

Sorry if this is dumb, but I’m having trouble understanding. I have a basic understanding of Democrats, republicans etc but could someone dumb down the concept of a midterm election for an Australian with no clue? Could Trump be thrown out of power or is he not involved in the voting?

The US government is made up of three branches. The judicial branch, which is the system of courts in the US that interpret laws and resolves any legal disputes.

Then there's the Executive branch, which is responsible for supporting and enforcing the laws. The president and his cabinet are included, as well as federal agencies like the the Food and Drug Administration.

Then there's the legislative branch. This is the one that writes the laws and passes them. The branch is made up of two houses: The House of Representatives and the Senate. Every two years, house members are reelected, and every six years, Senators are reelected. Today, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are contested AND 35 out of 100 Senate seats are contested. As the name implies, midterms takes place in the middle of the president's term.

The reason I went into what each branch does is because I wanted to make it clear that Trump and Congress are like separate entities in the US government. You asked if Trump is involved in the voting. Today's votes aren't about Trump, the spot for president is not being contested. Some people are talking about impeachment, because Congress has the ability to impeach a president. Which, if the Democrats are the majority in both houses, there's a possibility that they could impeach Trump.

Although this year appears different in the numbers of people voting, normally, the midterms have a low turn out since some people can't be arsed to vote if the president isn't on the ballot. Some lobbyists will push questionable ballot measures through in hopes they won't be noticed or understood.

Fellow Aussie here. The midterm elections are for the seats in the Senate and the House. Not all senators are up for re-election but most of the House reps are due to 2 year term limits. The Democrats are projected to win the majority of the seats in the House but not likely the Senate.

The House starts impeachment proceedingsbut the Senate needs to put the president on trial. Since the Senate is likely to stay Republican majority, impeachment is unlikely.

It's also the general election day for the United States, for every state, county, city, and town. Mayors, state congress, state governors, local ballot initiatives, and all sorts of other stuff is being voted on. Two states are even voting to legalize weed!

Impeachment is just a trial by Congress. Clinton was impeached, but not removed from office.

If the House decides to initiate impeachment proceedings, the Senate can shut it down there. if they agree to impeach, Trump will be tried for whatever it is (likely via Mueller's findings so treason, perjury, etc) in front of Congress who then vote whether or not to remove from office.

Basically, unless he Nixons and quits before it gets to that point, he isn't going anywhere. Then we repeat in 2020. Then we revolt.

How does one become the traitor's dipshit? What is a dipshit? Unless you meant a dipstick, but that doesn't make much sense either. What would a traitor's dipstick imply? A tool to test oil that a traitor uses?

It is called the Midterms because it is the middle of the President's term. He won two years ago, he'll be up for re-election in two years. And midterms are what students in the US call their middle of the year exams. The midterms are considered a reflection on how voters feel about the President.

Right now the Republicans control the House and the Senate. This makes it easier for Trump to push through legislation. If the Dems take either, it will be harder for Trump. But it has nothing to do with him staying in office.

The Dems are very likely to take the House. But it looks almost impossible for the Dems to take the Senate. Which is heartbreaking.

It's important to note that, although it's upsetting that the Dems will likely lose the senate, they barely had a chance in the first place. They have to take almost every seat open in the senate to win.

It's a midterm because it is in the middle of his term. This is an opportunity for congressional seats to be revoted on, so the legislative branch can be taken by the opposing party which would take a lot of steam out of his sails. It has nothing to do with position, but can largely influence his effect for the next two years.

I am in Missouri and where I live there was nothing on the ballot about abortions, heath care, or anything to related to pregnancy. For some reason there were so many pro-life, abortion kills, religious signs leading up to my polling place. WHY? Even with my basic searches of most people on the ballot, there weren't any huge issues they were debating.

I can only guess it has to do with McCatskill. She has come out hard on healthcare. Generally midwestern voters vote red not because of economics but because of abortion. Still, she's Pro-Life and pro-wall so there isn't much to go after her with.

I am not American, but senators serve 6 year terms which are staggered so a different batch are up for election every 2 years. Helps ensure some continuity in congress so everyone isn't being replaced in one go.

Probably because politics pins their megathread, which doesn’t lend to people upvoting it, and the reddit algorithm keeping it off the front page. Also, I’ve noticed that most politics threads are kept from the front page of /all in general lately. If I log onto reddit using the official reddit official app vs redditblue, all the political threads are gone.

The fact that you can label two parties that are fundamentally the same as good or evil goes to show how brainwashed Americans are. You literally have no choice, you choose between two elite-ruled parties that operate in the interest of two different groups of elites. That's why they want you to vote. To create the illusion that America is being led by the will of the people.

Ok, but one party explicitly wants to make policies that hurt me, and one explicitly wants policies that help me. They both have flaws, but let’s not pretend that Donald Trump would have been elected as a Democrat.

Edit: that’s just an example. They aren’t the same and anyone pushing that rhetoric is terribly uninformed. Look at gerrymandering, health care, tax cuts, social security cuts, campaigning against legalizing weed, the list goes on... the lesser of the two evils is still just that, a LESSER evil.

Oh look here's some bread and wine. We've stolen billions of dollars from the people but here is some Medicaid to make up for it!

Look at those pesky republicans that want to remove your all your rights... So just make sure you stay angry at them and keep society polarized because we wouldn't want a united people with a strong national identity, now would we? Of course not because that would mean that our beloved elites would have to adjust to the wills of the people..

Most east coast polls close about 9pm EST. California is 3 hours behind. Hawaii is 6. (Now you also understand why Americans don't think much of distance...) We will start to get preliminary results by 8pm EST, but concrete information will really begin rolling in about 10pm EST. Unless everything turns blue, you're going to be up until about 3am EST. I live in the states, so I'm going to be up all night. Keeping the Xanax nearby.

Hi Americans, this isn't so much to do with this election per se, but I'm wondering what your thoughts are on compulsory voting. Would you be for its introduction? Against it and being made to vote? For it in theory but don't think it'd be practical in the US?

Edit, additional questions as a lot of people have mentioned it: what if the date was a holiday or weekend? If voting was easier in general?

Hi Americans, this isn't so much to do with this election per se, but I'm wondering what your thoughts are on compulsory voting. Would you be for its introduction? Against it and being made to vote? For it in theory but don't think it'd be practical in the US?

The first step is to make it easy to vote. For many marginalized communities it’s very difficult, between ID requirements, lack of polling places, and the fact that the election is on a Tuesday which many low income people can’t take off. In some locations it can take hours to vote, these tend to be areas with more minorities. So compulsory voting would likely just be a tax for people who were already partially disenfranchised via voter suppression. We need to start with things like early voting, vote by mail and automatic voter registration. These are a lot more practical and way less controversial than obligatory voting.

Agreed! I think the system needs an overhaul for voter registration and would love automatic registration, but I’m a third party voter and can’t imagine being forced to vote. That seems like it would seal the two left system into place forever.

I would be against it simply because choosing not to vote is as valid as casting your vote, IMO.

However, I do strongly think that most people here would support having Election Day being a national holiday (similar to Australia) because many people here simply don’t have the means to take unpaid time off work to go vote on a Tuesday.

I think that given the opportunity and means to vote, many if not most people here would take advantage of it. But I think most Americans would bristle at anything being compulsory.

Edit: and to put on my slightly tin foil hat here, I am convinced that Election Day is on a Tuesday at least in part because it lowers voter turnout for the poor, young, uneducated, and financially unstable groups. This benefits republicans, imo. This along with other practices - like voter ID laws and lack of polling stations availability - discourage and even prevent voters from actually going out to vote. A holiday Election Day would help fix some of these biases but some people in government wouldn’t want that.

Coming from Australia, I don’t understand why America doesn’t have compulsory voting, or ID laws. ID laws specifically is not hard at all to implement, and I have no idea how it’s even remotely associated with voter suppression.

Because poorer people are less likely to have IDs. Because they’ll simultaneously close or reduce hours at DMVs (where you get photo IDs) in certain neighborhoods. Because tribal IDs (which a lot of Native Americans use) often don’t count.

But 68% of the US population already have a drivers license. There’s also ample time to get an ID card, it doesn’t have to be right before the election so I don’t think the DMV situation or Tribal situation is overly relevant. Assuming there was a disgruntled person who couldn’t vote in the General in 2016 because they didn’t have ID (where ID is hypothetically required), they would have had 2 years to get one. I think that’s ample time for some one that wants to vote, to be able to.

The vengeful part of me that gets pissed at people for not voting wants it to be compulsory but, the rational part of me always lands at having it be a national holiday. Give the people who really want to vote that whole day. Maybe the people who don't want to vote shouldn't have a say in how things are done.

“In 1845, the United States was largely an agrarian society. Farmers often needed a full day to travel by horse-drawn vehicles to the county seat to vote. Tuesday was established as election day because it did not interfere with the Biblical Sabbath or with market day, which was on Wednesday in many towns. “ However, it does seem logical a bunch of republicans sat in a room and orchestrated this 10 years before the Republican Party was founded... In a modern context I can’t say why they maintain Tuesday elections aside from ceremony.

I understand the historical context of the Tuesday vote but I don’t think it is relevant to a modern society anymore. Plenty of things in our government and laws could definitely be updated to fit moderns times, yet they aren’t - and that’s where my tin foil hat comes in.

I don’t really get the argument for an Election Day holiday. I know very few people who get federal holidays off of work, and those are the ones who work in government. It doesn’t seem like it would make it any easier to vote for most of the population.

Voting definitely needs to be made easier. Automatic registration, early voting, and vote by mail are all in practice in different places throughout the country, but in most places it’s still pretty challenging, all things considered.

I think it disproportionately punishes the very people who are being disenfranchised: people with disabilities, people who are caregivers, people who have four hour long lines to wait in, people without transportation, etc. Also any kind of fine is going to be much harder and even destroy low income people.

I want to make voting easier. I don’t want to punish people for things they often don’t have control over

Ok, but $50 is a lot if you are living paycheck to paycheck and even with expanded voting hours, etc. and better availability of absentee ballots, what if you have disabilities that vary from day to day? Or are a caregiver to small children or a parent or an adult with disabilities? Or work two jobs and thought you could go between jobs but the line is long?

With it being compulsory, there's a greater effort on the part of the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) to make sure everyone can vote. Absentee ballots, pre-election ballots, and even sending people to hospitals and aged care facilities to help people cast their votes. They really want everyone to vote, rather than be fined.

The US already has some states (like mine) where you just get a ballot in the mail and fill it in and mail it back at some point before election day. Obviously with mandatory voting we'd need to make it this easy for everyone.

I’m not arguing that making it easier to vote isn’t a good thing. But some ballots are going to get lost in the mail, some people don’t read English, some people can’t read, some people have no permanent address. I absolutely think we should make it as easy as possible to vote but that doesn’t mean I think people should be fined for not doing so.

I am against this. I voted this year but I really wasn’t feeling it because I don’t think that a lot of the people running on my ballot represent me. I think that’s a big reason why there is low voter turn out in the first place! Why vote for a politician who isn’t gonna fight for what you want? The solution is to run politicians who represent the people IMO.

I think there is a tendency for people to complained about voting in the US in a way that makes it seem very difficult to people in other countries.

Polls in the US are open from at least 7am to 7pm across the country. Many states have longer hours, opening as early as 6am and closing as late as 9pm. The number of people who can't make it on election day due to work is very small and it is possible to get time off work. Every state offers absentee ballots and many states have early voting.

I think the biggest barrier to voting is actually apathy. New York Magazine had an article where they interviewed people 18-29 who did not plan on voting and their reasons ran from "None of the candidates are liberal enough for me" to "I have no idea how to buy postage stamps." IMO, those are ridiculous excuses.

I am lucky that I've always lived in a densely populated area where I could walk to the polls. I am also lucky that I grew up in a family that always voted so the behavior was modeled to me. I knew to change my voter registration when I moved. The few times I couldn't vote in person, I knew to get an absentee ballot in advance. But I don't think I am special for voting in every election, lots of people manage what I've managed.

I think there is a tendency for people to bitch about voting in the US in a way that makes it seem very difficult to people in other countries.

I’m all for it. I’ve been pushing the merits of mandatory voting for over 20 years. There have to be some exceptions in a democracy even if it means going to the voting booth and pressing the “null” or “no contest” button + make Election Day a federal holiday. Also 5 year election cycles and shorter campaign cycles are something we should discuss as well.

There are religious groups in the U.S. who take seriously the idea of being “in the world but not of it” or the idea that only God is sovereign over them. These groups opt not to vote or otherwise participate in democracy. Some sects are even exempted from paying into unemployment insurance and Social Security, because their members do not utilize those entitlements.

I don’t agree with these people (about much of anything!) but I respect their right to peacefully follow their religion.

So, no, I don’t think we should force them to vote or punish them for opting out.

But don't you think it's unfair that people can avoid paying into social security—which exists to keep retirees and disabled people who can't work from starving to death—for religious reasons, and yet my deeply held moral beliefs against war don't matter and I still have to pay taxes to support our multi-trillion dollar military budget?

Like someone can say they don't have to contribute to helping the needy because they claim their god said so, but I can't refrain from contributing to the literal murder of foreigners regardless of what my religion is? Like even if I were in a completely pacifist religion where you're not even allowed to hurt bugs like Jainism I still couldn't avoid it.

So if we'll force pacifists to pay for war, why not force people to vote? (Or pay a small fine if they don't...that's all that happens to people that fail to vote in Australia, no one is saying to send them to jail.)

I sort of like the idea a little, but the government making you do something that is compulsory seems inherently UN-American. While I wouldn't really mind if it was implemented, I'd still feel like it's wrong.

No, for me (and I think many others) choosing not to vote IS our voting voice. Everyone is terrible and since I was young I've seen politics ruin everything it touches. I don't do it. Not voting is the height of my ability to express "I don't do this shit" and if it were compulsory, I'd just ruin the ballot anyway. More processing and overhead costs/time for everyone.

Not for making it compulsory. Mostly because how it could backfire on you. Fact of the matter is, even if we could make it compulsory, that's not going to increase the likelihood of someone voting unless the internet providers got involved, and that's a whole other kettle of fish. And since a good part of voting involves being an informed voter, compulsory voting could turn our elections into popularity contests instead because a lot of folks just don't want to spend the time learning about the candidates (it's already a popularity contest now, but let's not make it official). I'm actually more for making voting day a mandatory work/school holiday instead. Way too many people don't vote because their workplaces or class times won't work with it, so why not just take that barrier out the way instead?

I have been following this election on reddit and some of the stuff that I can't understand is election day rules. If someone could explain.

Why is voter id a problem? How many polling stations are there? How is voter suppression actually done? Why this distrust of electronic voting machines? And computerized lists?

India basically has a voter id(a free service) which is** seperate from all others. We have a rule that no one registered should have to go more that 2 km to vote(which results in stuff like the election officials going in the Gir forest for 1 person to set up a booth of him, have him vote and closing the booth as all registered voters for the area are done. We use evms and voting lists.

Our entire electoral system made a lot of sense in the conditions of the country and it’s people 200 years ago, when the US was a failed Spanish, French, and English outpost, impoverished agrarian burg flooded with 2 centuries of Europe’s worst thieves, murderers, and religious extremists, before the age of effective communications, before 85% of the population had anything more than a 5th grade education, couldn’t follow issues and the couldn’t imagine anything more complex than the acquisition of resources, power and wealth hierarchies, and what vulnerable group of people to brutalize and exploit next. It worked out great. However, time marched on (at least somewhat, for some of us) and most of those conditions either don’t apply anymore, or are decreasing in relevance as time goes by, and what were left with is a system where land votes instead of people, and the people’s actual vote is devalued and overvalued to compensate, simultaneously prohibiting negotiating millions of votes to discard, as well as requiring it. It’s pure dysfunction, systemic corruption, and is as removed from the idea of democracy as possible. It broke off from the British monarchy, but the culture continued on, changing as little as possible. To this day, we have eliminated all effective options and distilled all representation into two parties. It’s a 2 party state, each of which, and the public of which, actually wishes there were only one party, their own. Add to that, the primary system favoring extremist lunatics, electing the same people over and over turning congressmen and senator into lifetime positions, and reliance on personality cult, our system of “representative” government sites than an anachronism, it’s a slow and steady moving catastrophe, and using it to assemble a government capable of constructive decision making is like using a water wheel from 1776 to power Manhattan. It can’t work, which is why there have been better ways invented since then. Unfortunately our country is so in love with its absurdly fictional mythology, it can’t inag8ne making an improvement to the system. ...even though it’s been changed many times, even recently. This isn’t to sound negative, but it’s just one more way that it’s unthinkable the US will survive its stupidity for another century.

Voter ID is a problem because it can be considered a poll tax, which is illegal. States that implement strict voter ID laws generally do not make acquiring those IDs free or painless. It seems silly to many folks that there could be someone who can't idle at the DMV for a few hours and fork over $40 or whatever for an ID, but not everyone's financial situation is the same, not everyone's home and family situation is the same (single parents with three young children hanging out in the DMV? Oh yeah, uh huh), and not everyone has a DMV that isn't packed to the gills--sometimes, DMVs in crowded areas are purposefully shuttered to make getting an ID even tougher! These laws are targeted to disproprotionately affect the poor, minorities, and those who live in cities, which tend to vote for one party over the other, so aside from the poll tax aspect, it's also a form of partisan voter suppression. Voting should be easier, not harder.

How many polling stations there are depends on how each state wants to apportion them. Elections in the US are handled on a state level, with state leaders determining how many polling places are where, whether early voting or mail-in votes are allowed, and so on. There are numerous examples of state leaders shutting down precincts in areas they think aren't going to vote for their party, and while these attempts generally fall to legal challenges, the elections commissions can drag their feet long enough that it doesn't matter; sure, they may (or may not!) be punished for it later, but the election results have already been altered by their supression efforts.

Voter suppression comes in many forms. I talked about two, but there's others. Gerrymandering is one, and you can find some easily googled examples of how that works, but it's mostly a problem for House races and the like. Some recent examples of voter suppression include: placing a precinct in a gated community, which then denied access to voters; hosting a law enforcement checkpointing drill on the streets between a minority neighborhood and its polling place; taking the names of felons and striking anyone with the same name from the voter rolls under the guise of preventing the felons alone from voting (which itself could be considered suppression, if they have been released); removing voters from the rolls for subjective differences in signatures, because they haven't voted in a whole, or just because; closing precincts in areas with voters you think will vote against you, or slashing hours, or ensuring there are too few machines for the anticipated amount of voters.

Voting machines are insecure. They're buggy. No one who knows anything about computer security trusts 'em. They're a scam pushed on us in the wake of the 2000 "hanging chad" debacle in Florida, which itself was likely created by the manufacturer of those faulty paper ballots wilfully using substandard materials to produce a defective product. Electronic machines don't all leave a paper trail, they're disproportionately produced by just a handful of companies owned by two brothers (with connections to a certain party, ahem). In general, there's just too much to go wrong with them compared to good ol' paper. Paper ballots also allow as many people to vote as you have flat surfaces and space to scribble on, whereas machines are expensive, few, and involve some poorly-trained poll worker fiddling with a plastic card for half a minute before you can do anything, leading to larger lines which discourage voters.

The core problem with electronic voting machines is accountability. Voting machines can be fine, but the ones that are problematic are the ones that are connected to the internet (holy shit, what are you thinking?), the ones that don't leave paper trails, closed source voting machines, and the reports of machines changing people's vote.

Lack of paper trail (something that is missing on a fair number of machines) means that it's much harder to verify both for the voter and the election that each vote was counted and that it was counted correctly.

Connecting a voting machine to the internet is just asking to get it hacked.

Closed source means that flaws cannot be spotted nor audited by outside sources. It increases the likelihood that any given flaw in your system will go unspotted by less malicious actors. Any security professional will tell you that "security through obscurity" has a place, but only as part of a system as a whole, and relying on it for something like this is just asking to be caught with your pants down. This is particularly true if you also connect your machine to the internet.

And all of that largely leads into the last point. How can we prove that the machines aren't doing this? Maybe the election body is uncorrupt, but what if it's not. "Who watches the watchmen" so to speak. Access to the source code could prove this, but a nebulous black box that takes in votes and spits out tallies much less so.

voter fraud is high effort (you basically have to bus enormous numbers of people from polling place to polling place), low impact, easily detected, and has enormous consequences (it's a felony). this is why, though it is technically possible to do, it occurs at a near-zero level across the nation.
the reason people don't like the id requirement is that there are a lot of people who have EVERY RIGHT to vote but might not have a drivers license (old people, people who live in a dense urban area, the indigent, etc), and so the id requirement prevents them from voting without doing anything to prevent voter fraud (because voter fraud doesn't exist). it is a manufactured problem used as a justification to disenfranchise voters.

So the way it works here is that we can only vote in the district where we reside. And in that district, there are multiple places with many polling booths. I'm a college student and my campus has 2 voting places on opposite sides of campus with 15+ booths each. Also, depending on your state, you can do EVMs, paper ballots or both.

I moved from India 2 years ago, so I can't really answer any of your other questions

Last election republicans waited til after they lost the governor and then they stripped all his power but this time they're planning ahead. There are six propoaed amendments and they're all shit, but the way they're worded on the ballot makes them sound legit. A good friend drafted explanations of them so I'll just copy paste and paraphrase.

The first is adding the right to hunt and fish to the constitution, as a few other states have done. Both sides agree it's probably a plot to get Republicans to vote and doesn't solve any real problem, may open more legal issues.

judicial appointee amendment (most important one):
Change process for Judicial vacancies:
This amendment alters the appointment of Judges to district and state courts. Lets just start with the basics of how things currently work. Judges are elected officials in the state of North Carolina, including our Supreme Court. Supreme court judges, NC Court of Appeals Judges, and superior court judges are elected to 8 year terms. District court judges are elected to 4 year terms. Under current law, if a seat for a judgeship opens before the term is up, the governor appoints a replacement, who hold that seat until the next election cycle (there is a special clause for if the vacancy occurs within 60 days). It’s important to note that the replacement judge is there until the next election, not until the end of the original term. For district courts, current law mandates that 5 names be submitted to the governor from the local bar, and that the governor give them “due consideration.” There is no mandate for how he fills higher court seats.

This amendment changes a couple things about this process. First, it changes that the legislature chooses the appointee. They will submit 2 names for the governor to choose from, and the vacancy will be filled by one of those names. Secondly, it is proposed in this amendment to start a Non-partisan Judicial Merit Committee that would be made up of an unspecified number of people (it is written as no more than 9), who would be responsible for submitting names to the legislature for review and submission for the government. The committee members would be nominated mostly by the legislature, with one appointee each reserved for the chief justice and the governor. The third thing proposed in this amendment is changing the term of office for the appointee. They appointee would hold office until the next election following the general election. This could extend an appointees term past the original term that the vacancy was created in.

So proponents of this amendment claim to be creating a non-partisan of appointing judges. They will establish this non-partisan committee and thus take politics out of appointing judges. I have not read any real explanation for extending the terms of these appointees. I do think it is noteworthy that this amendment, in combination with the next one about an ethics board, have drawn the most backlash and across the board opposition, and are also the only amendments for which the legislature has not offered and official explanation.

Opposition to this amendment has been pretty broad. Judges across the state, the ACLU, all 5 of the former governors (including both republicans and democrats) have spoken out against it. The main argument is that if you have the legislature appointing people to the judiciary branch, then we no longer have an independent judiciary. The non-partisan board is appointed by a legislature in which one party has a super majority, so it’s unlikely that the board would in fact be non-partisan. It can’t be ignored that the judiciary has pushed back against the legislature in the this state for the last few years, with a few large lawsuits along the lines of gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and the bathroom law. Many people in judiciary feel this is a dangerous power grab. It concentrates power in one branch (the legislative) while removing it from both the executive branch, and the judiciary.

Voter ID law:
This amendment requires photo ID for voting. There is no language in the amendment for what is required as a photo ID, and no prediction of monetary cost to the tax payers, as there are no details. The amendment states that the legislature will decide the details after passage of the law. I do think it is important to note that these laws have been struck down by courts across the country as being unconstitutional. North Carolina has decided to try and by pass that ruling, by simply putting it in the constitution.

Fwiw, the ballot simply says require a voter ID for in person voting.

Income Tax cap:
This amendment decreases the state income tax cap from 10% to 7%. There does seem to be some messaging that this would lower your taxes, but the current rate is 5.5%, and it would not change this. It would simply cap how high it could go in the future. Proponents say this will protect future generations from higher taxes. Opponents point to the fact that this amendment has no exceptions, so it the state fell on hard times due to hurricanes for instance, that they would have to cut budgets to education or public lands, which are already struggling along in this state. The state had a temporary increase for the upper tax bracket in the early 2000’s when it was really struggling. It was 2 year increase to 8.25% on the top income bracket. We now only have one income bracket, and everyone pays the same. This amendment does not affect the sales tax or corporate tax rate (which FYI is 3%).

Victims rights amendment:
This amendment seeks to change/add to what is already in the constitution. The current constitution grants victims of felony crimes, violent crimes, and domestic abuse, the right to a few things: to be informed and present at proceedings of the accused, to be heard at sentencing of the accused, to information about the crime, to be informed of the results of the case, to be informed of the escape, release, or pardon of the perpetrator, and the right to talk to the prosecutor. The proposed amendment would expand victims rights to all crimes, including crimes against property, and crimes committed by teens/kids. It adds and removes some language, such as “ In a reasonable manner,” to the existing rights, which is I guess open to interpretation. But it also creates a procedure in which the court is responsible for contacting the victim to allow them full opportunity to assert their rights. The addition of this step is estimated to cost $11 million a year (this number comes directly from the state legislature literature on the amendment) to create the staff needed to implement this change. Proponents are taking the obvious line of “who doesn’t want to help victims of crimes?” Opponents point out that these rights already exist, and adding a procedural step for already bogged down courts is a waste of tax-payer dollars. The ACLU has opposed these amendments throughout the country, because they argue that it clouds the “innocent until proven guilty” mandate of our justice system. Identifying victims and allowing their interests to be heard prior to a guilty verdict clouds the water of the deliberation process, and is counter to the ideal that one is innocent until proven guilty, and is entitled to due process.

Eight member ethics board:
This amendment would change the Board of Ethics and Elections Enforecment. In March of this year, the board became active with 9 members, 4 democrats, 4 republicans, and 1 unaffiliated representative, who were chosen by the governor from a list supplied to him by the state democratic and state republican party. The 8 chosen from that list, then submitted to the governor two names of an unaffiliated representative, and he chose one. The amendment proposes that the board be chosen by legislators, instead of state parties, and that the board be made up of 8 people. It calls for 4 republicans and 4 democrats and removes representation for unaffiliated voters. Proponents call this a non-partisan board to implement voting laws, but as with the other hotly contested amendment about judges, the legislature has not released its official explanation of this amendment. Opponents point out that not only do they remove the 9th member, leaving a board that is most likely in gridlock, they are responsible for choosing the members of a board who is responsible for approving districts, and keeping or removing them from power.

So I voted for the hunting amendment as I'm an occasional hunter, and the felony victims amendment due to my being enrolled in criminal Justice, and I sincerely believe that victims need more rights to get their "just deserts". As for the rest, I voted against it. Some because it seems like pointless red tape, and some because I wasn't properly informed on said amendments. As for the rest, I voted a republican/ libertarian ticket.

They went for more subtle shade this time. Worded a bunch of party driven amendments in a way that seems logical but actually makes things worse or at best keeps them the same. See my above comment for deets

I did vote, but I'm not confident that I was informed enough to deserve to. I did some research but, especially when it comes to the judges, I don't really know a thing about any of them other than the party they identify with.

I think a lot people vote based on Democrat or Republican without taking the time to learn about each candidate and their platform and I question if that is really any better than not voting at all.

I read up on the candidates, as I am neither democrat nor republican (I’m registered Democrat bc PA is a closed state) and some of the democratic candidates platform was strictly “down with republicans, anything to stop trump” which doesn’t get us any further forward as a country. I will not vote straight party EVER, because I’m not putting a politician into office just so they can bicker with the other side and halt possible real progress because it isn’t from their party. Many people, do, though.

One of my roommates didn’t vote today, and he cited that he didn’t know enough to feel confident voting for the right person. He feared voting for the wrong person, as we’ve seen some real fallout from that happening already in this country.
I offered to give him some points, but it being on the way to vote, I should’ve taken the time with him earlier. Oops. I respect his respect for informed voting, although I am of the opinion that it is necessary to do your research and show the fuck up. Not everyone will. That’s life.

What non-health care related issue (i.e. not ACA, abortion, etc.) is most important to you as a voting issue?

Within your state, aside from Governor and representatives (state Senate or assembly) which race was the most important to you and why? (e.g. insurance commissioner, superintendent of schools, attorney general, etc) ?

What non-health care related issue (i.e. ACA, abortion, etc.) is most important to you as a voting issue?

Prop 12 is significant to me but I have pretty mixed feelings about it.

My Senate race is between two Democrats, but I've been largely happy with Feinstein.

I've been mostly anxiously watching other state races. I'm really hopeful for Beto O'Rourke in Texas. He's a really promising candidate whether he wins or loses. I could see him being another candidate for progressives to rally around in the future.

Gerrymandering is a practice intended to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander.

Basically it’s redrawing political district lines to get a particular outcome. Like if you want a really republican candidate, re drawing district lines to exclude a more liberal suburb or pocket of houses. It’s drawing the line to include a specific group of voters so that a specific candidate wines.

Something that both parties do to decrease competition and secure their position in power. Republicans are usually more ruthless/effective about it.

Congressional districts are drawn using different methods for each state. Some states have a system where whoever is in power in the state Congress at the time has more influence over the drawing of the districts. If they want to maintain power, they can draw districts so that all of the supporters for the opposing party are concentrated in one district. They'll lose that district, but then they split up all of their own supporters into a variety of districts where they can beat whatever small portion of the other party's supporters there are left over. (Or any other strategy for drawing district lines which gives them an advantage)

This can lead to absurd district lines, which is where the namesake came from: there was a boundary that looked like a salamander because it slithered around, grabbing different communities to concentrate them in one district.

Gerrymandering is often paired with neglect so that minorities or democrats cannot vote. Right now, many precincts are having technical errors that are preventing voting or delaying it by hours, and the GOP generally is making these decisions.

I just wanted to add this because gerrymandering has effects more than just packing districts with a specific voter majority.

I wish a lot of people would vote early. The lines were crazy long today. Also it was interesting to note how many people vote straight party in my state. I usually vote Republican overall like this time (Ted Cruz) but I always go down the list individually. I can't vote for someone who I know nothing about.

This has been cancer smh. For the past month my teacher has been shoving heavily left biased rhetoric down the class' throats and won't ever tell both sides of the story for anything. Like at the start it didn't matter too much but now it's getting extremely annoying cause it happens literally everyday and oftentimes includes fake/unproven things. What happened to being professional and teaching the facts smh

I know that Reddit is left-leaning and I'd imagine that this subreddit is even more left-leaning but are there any other gals out here voting Republican also? Why did you choose to be Republican?

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When I was a junior/senior in high school (and very uninformed about politics), the 2016 presidential election was happening. Every one of my classmates were "feeling the Bern" and I just hopped on the bandwagon with my peers. "Democrat good, Republican bad" was my knowledge on the government haha. After Donald Trump was elected I was personally shocked and could not figure out why anybody would vote for him. I started doing my own research and only read credible sources. I started studying more about how the government works, each parties' ideology, and how policies effect us. Eventually I realized I was (very) right-leaning and I was more in tune with conservative ideology. Now I'm a sophomore in college and voting for the first time! VoTed for Cruz in Texas!

I tend to learn more traditional republican. Like Bush-era. But the way republican has gone lately is not me. I tended to fall more republican on the fiscal and budget issues.

Personally I think social issues should be out of politics. I can’t vote for republican if they are anti abortion or anti gay because I think everyone should have the right to choose and the right to marry who they love. As long as these issues are political I can’t see myself voting republican.

Tried voting this morning in Charleston, SC in a poor part of town that's steadily being gentrified. They had 7 machines, 2 were "broken" by 10am. After an hour and a half, I was almost inside when senior citizens were allowed first access to the polls for the second time this morning. I had to abandon, my wait would have been another 45 minutes and I was already a half hour late for work.

Is that policy of allowing seniors to vote first standard policy? They were not disabled, there was curbside voting for that.

I have never seen senior vote first, but I also tend to vote later in the day.

There is a real problem with local governments not being able to get enough poll workers. About a month ago I posted a bunch of articles in city subreddits along the lines of "Columbia MO/Fayetteville AR/South Bend IN/Bucks County PA needs more poll workers." I think a few people might have signed up based on that. It is a paid job, but you have to work all day and not many people can do it.

Frustrating as it can be, I think the lack of poll workers is often the problem rather than a city making an active choice to create long lines.

The average poll worker is over the age of 65 and their health can act up leading to no shows.

Being a poll worker isn't a job like working in an office or waiting tables, it's really more of a volunteer position that happens to pay minimum wage. People do it because they want to support the Democratic process. And there are serious poll worker shortages, so it isn't like they stole a job someone else wanted.

Depends on state laws, but generally if you're disabled and request help and/or transportation (wheelchair) to the polling place's ballot area also sometimes you have an option to skip the line - sort of like a Disney land ride option.

Yes to early voting and employers are required to give you time off nationwide I thought. I work in a restaurant, though, so showing up is important. I'm heading back to the pool for round 2 in a little while.

They were mostly black seniors, but that's what I thought. Between that and the machine situation (7, 2 broken, so 5, in a downtown voting location for what was known to be a big turnout) I literally screamed "FUUUCK!!!!" right in front of a cop when I stormed out. She was just there, it wasn't directed at the police in any way, just at the system.

If you were already registered to vote, but didn't update your address in time, you should be able to cast a provisional ballot, but today you have to do it in person at the County Board of Elections office. Find yours here:

" On Election Day: At the designated polling place based upon your current residential address, or, if you have moved from one Ohio precinct to another and did not update your voter registration prior to the deadline for submitting your change of address (30 days before the election) then you may cast your provisional ballot in person at the office of the board of elections. "

Looks like you can get a provisional ballot at the board of elections in Dayton.

On Election Day: At the designated polling place based upon your current residential address, or, if you have moved from one Ohio precinct to another and did not update your voter registration prior to the deadline for submitting your change of address (30 days before the election) then you may cast your provisional ballot in person at the office of the board of elections.
From: Ohio Secretary of State Website

That's the point of a provisional ballot. You'll vote now and if you can provide proof of residency when you vote, you're good. Otherwise, you have seven days to provide proof of residency at your county board of elections. See the link provided by ganlet20 for more information.

Voted straight blue, with the exception of some local positions where I had no choice, in a red area in a swing state and I had some trouble at the polling station.

The woman who was inputting my information claimed she couldn't find me in the voter database after putting in my information a few times. She then took me to another area so she could fill out a form and call a voter hotline. I was watching her fill out the form and she wrote my birthdate incorrectly and I told her what my actual birthday is (even though it was on my license and voter registration card) and she put the correct information in the database and my name showed up immediately.

I ask because my town has been experiencing widespread ballot scanning machine breakdowns. Instead of letting you run your paper ballot through the machine, we have to give them to the polling place volunteers to put in a folder to get counted later. Felt kinda sketchy.

I was able to check my vote on a website for my county. This one. Maybe try searching for the county site? Try googling "voting ballot status" and add on the name of the county/state and see what comes up.

I heard Radiolab's most recent episode and it was inspiring. They described how Ireland's ranked choice voting system works: you rank all the candidates (there could be as many as 100 in one race!) And all the 1 votes are tallied. Then if anyone's #1 doesn't get into the top 3, they get a vote. This goes on in rounds until everyone's ballot has contributed (it's really an exciting ordeal). It evens the playing field and encourages coalition, which we could really use. They're already using it in smaller elections.

I've been really fascinated thinking of alternative voting systems recently. We did ranked voting for my college student government and I liked that a lot. It encourages people to vote third party, because it doesn't "waste" their vote like our current system. Maine tried it out recently! Not sure if they're doing it today too.

Also, the idea of sortition. It's how ancient Athens used to do it. If implemented correctly, it would make elections less vulnerable to outside meddling and would reduce extremism. Would take a lot of work to figure out who is "qualified," how you ensure proper randomization, etc., but it's interesting to think about.

Also, the idea of sortition. It's how ancient Rome used to do it. If implemented correctly, it would make elections less vulnerable to outside meddling and would reduce extremism. Would take a lot of work to figure out who is "qualified," how you ensure proper randomization, etc., but it's interesting to think about.

Basically how it works is that you rank your choices (1-however many candidates are on the ballot) and if your 1st choice reaches the quota before your vote is counted, your 2nd choice gets your first vote. If your 1st and 2nd choice both pass the quota before your vote is counted, your 3rd choice receives your 1st vote and so on.

You can also choose to only give your first choice to one candidate and leave the rest of the ballot blank, although most people don't do this. Generally people pick at least 3 choices.

While it is a fair system, Ireland has a population of ~4 million people, which is less than some of the least populous US states. (Not everyone here votes either, so I'd say the average electorate is around 3.5 million.)

I could be wrong, but I just can't see this system working in a country as divisive as the US, especially with the current two-party system.

PR usually ends up in (sometimes successful) coalition governments, but we also have about 5 relevant parties here compared to the US' two, which seem to hate each other.

Population is also accounted for in the Irish system, so districts with more people such as Dublin have more districts. Population differences aren't as wide as the US though. The US is so large and states such as California have such a large population compared to the less populous states that you could possibly end up with thousands of districts in the US with maybe 3 or 4 seats per district.

While I'll admit I'm no expert when it comes to US politics, I feel that, while PR is a great system, it simply would not work in the US because so many districts would be created and getting the results of votes would take forever. Republicans and Democrats also seem to be unwilling to listen and work with each other. I might be wrong though.

PR is a great system though, and I feel it should really be implemented in the US, but care must be taken to ensure that states like California with a huge population don't end up dictating the results of elections for the less populous states.

Edit: We also only have one "house" that is elected, the Seanad (upper house) is kind of unelected, so I'm not sure if PR would work for the Senate and House of Representatives in the US.

My first go-to is usually the local bar association, which has ranks from “unqualified” to “extremely qualified”. It allows me to discard any nutters right off the bat. Then I look at endorsements and candidate statements.

I google their names and one of the results on the front page usually ends up linking to a local newspaper or university that has information on the candidates. If you're lucky they also asked questions to help you figure out who you want to vote for.

That said, there have been years when I wasn't able to get info on judicial nominees. I usually just leave those blank. I'd rather not support someone than give uninformed support.

Vote411.org is sponsored by the League of Women Voters and offers non-partisan information from candidates that choose to provide it. If you give your street address, it'll show your ballet ballot (though a ballet would be kind of awesome) and then you can click on judicial races to see info about the candidates.

Also, check your local newspaper's websites.

Vote411.org is sponsored by the League of Women Voters and offers non-partisan information from candidates that choose to provide it. If you give your street address, it'll show your ballet and then you can click on judicial races to see info about the candidates.

Vote411.org is sponsored by the League of Women voters and offers non-partisan information from candidates that choose to provide it. If you give your street address, it'll show your ballet and then you can click on judicial races to see info about the candidates.

I am not from the US but Europe and i have seen the Reddit bias affecting me over the years.
Bernie is going to win!
Hillary is going to win!
Trump is getting impeached!
Majority of people displeased with Trump!

But it's a lot of wishful thinking and cherrypicked news stories it seems. So i am really curious what the US really thinks with these elections.

I just fear the side that loses is going to say Elections were rigged.

Lol, I feel like calling TRP or Voat merely "right wing" is honestly a disservice to people who are right wing? You've got people actively calling for disenfranchising women and minorities again, the whole ethnic cleansing thing and even lynchings?

Honestly man, I couldn’t tell you one. Most social media outlets have some super hardcore right winged racists that make us look bad.

Most of the conservatives are the ones you don’t see... Which is what I identify with.

I work 60-72 hours a week and have a decent health care and all I want is for the government to get off my back, leave me alone, and stay out of my wallet so that I can buy a house. There’s no real social media for that.

This is so crazy to me because as a Canadian most of the content I see on Reddit is incredibly shifted towards the right. I mean even the democrats are right wing by my standards. It seems that the biggest thing now is to claim that being somewhere in the middle is the most intelligent thing you can do, but what does that even mean? When the ‘left and right’ are basically the same party but one hates women and minorities slightly less.

I hope so! Even in Canada the population of people who consider themselves actual socialists is unfortunately small, and is split between 2 major tendencies (ML and Trotskyist). The large majority of people just want capitalists who will protect our (shitty) healthcare.

I think here on the Internet we see a very small margin of what politics are like. Especially in the US. We’ve got so many cultures here and so many people from different walks of life that it’s not really plausible or possible to satisfy everyone.

I don’t really have any answers for you. If I did I would be in politics. I just know that due to how big this country is (and yours too) that there’s always going to be a group that feels left out and abandoned. Obviously going into the 2016 elections it was the conservative men and women who took a stand.

Honestly the thought of conservative men and women, especially the wealthy ones, ‘taking a stand’ is so hilarious and ridiculous to me. Imagine having an extreme amount of power and still feeling left out lmfao unbelievable.

However, most of the conservatives I know aren’t wealthy. They work regular jobs like you and me. And yet a lot of my friends catch a lot of shit because they’re white males? When other write off the fruits of your labor as white privilege or when you call someone a “cis male”. It’s pretty disrespectful. And just like minorities and queers, you can only take so much shit before you decide that enough is enough.

I think the election of Donald Trump wasn’t the result of a racist nation. But people that are tired of liberals shoving their view points down those who don’t want it. It built up a resentment that made people want to support Trump JUST so see him upset those that opposed him so greatly.

FYI: "queers" is not a great word to use if you're not LGBT. Many of us don't even like being called "queer" by other LGBT people, and "queers" has sort of a "the gays/the blacks" vibe to it. "LGBT" or "LGBT+" is the best way to refer to the community.

Being from California, yes. Occasionally posters of conservative people will go up around my city giving a “warning” or “trigger” alert that they are ‘trump supporters and bigots’ which is pretty annoying.

But I traveled all over the US while in the military and I’m confident in my views.

As to your other points I think it is a safe bet that the Democrats will at least make huge gains in the House and make some, gains in the Senate.

If that happens they will get the power to subpoena Trump on a million irregularities. Trump has a very low tolerance for people not treating him like a king, so I think there will be a lot of ugly conflict in the government starting in February. Government shutdowns, etc.

There is a strong possibility impeachment will not happen.

If the Democrats win every single race today they would still be short 12 votes towards doing that.

Even if they had the votes impeachment could come at a political cost both to the party and to individual Congress people. On the other hand, for them, personally, there is the much more attractive option of gridlocking Trump on everything and sending him into the 2020 elections as an "accomplished nothing" president. That, plus two more years of Trump being Trump will have even some Trump loyalists ready to vote him out.

None of that is what this election is about. This election is what we call a "midterm" election which is when we vote for things like members of congress (if up for election), governors (34/50 states), local offices, and some state/local laws.

Next presidential election is in two years. The only thing that could possibly shift in this election on a national scale are our senate and house of representatives, of which many seats are up. This would change the vote balance in one of our 3 government branches which is a pretty big deal.

The reason you hear that kinda stuff on Reddit is that it's primarily Millennials and Millennials tend to be further to the left than the right. The US is split about 40/40/20 Republicans, Democrats and true Independents (those who don't pick or typically vote for only one side). A very large percentage of those over 50 years old in the US are Republican and a very large percentage of those under 30 are Democrats.

It is important to remember that Trump lost the popular vote so on average, people do hold those views. The US has an electoral college system to help the states with lower population still have a say in things and this is what swung the election strongly in Trumps favor (also maybe gerrymandering.... but its hard to say).

Still, Trump campaigned on a much different platform than what is currently happening, and so many young folks who may not have gone out to vote or cared much before hand are getting fired up, hence all the pro-Democrat anti-Republican stuff you've been seeing.

Electoral College definitely played a part, but gerrymandering didn’t. Gerrymandering only affects congressional races. Otherwise Dems would hold hardly any senate seats. If anyone is interested in learning about gerrymandering I highly recommend the book Ratfucked by Dave Daley.

I'm actually curious, maybe you can provide a link - Does equating the popular vote with actual majority held views stand up in this case? In other words, aren't there many millions of Americans who didn't vote? If so, how are their views incorporated into your estimation of things? They have to be, otherwise the claim falls apart. Looking forward to what you provide for reading, so thanks in advance!

It's worth mentioning, too - though it's entirely anecdotal - that I've seen many centrists and disillusioned democrats begin to swing right over the past six months or so. The seeming demonization of almost anyone with differing views is absolutely working against liberals in this country. Few moderates want to be a part of that level of aggression. It's starts to look A LOT like the German National Socialists' demonization of Jews, and we all know where that led. Yikes! Not to mention - The constant attacks begin to feel pretty immature and shallow (high school'ish, even?). It isn't hard for your average person to quickly discern between a far right bigot and a legitimate conservative view/candidate. Equating the two is, again, coming off as nothing more than a sad attempt at slander. Point being, people are getting "fired up" on all sides, and I'm not sure any one side is doing things properly. In fact, I'm quite confident that none of them are haha!

Well, Trump, Hilary, and Bernie are not on the ballot right now, to run for President.

The Mid Term elections happening today are for members of Congress, state governors, and local representatives. Right now, our Congress is comprised of a majority of conservative politicians. These conservatives largely support Trump and his agenda.

So naturally there is a large push to vote Conservatives out of office and replace them with more liberal politicians who will help stop Trump from pushing through his agenda.

Edit: There are reports of voting machines in Texas that have been programmed to switch votes at the last minute and there does seem to be some sort of coordinated effort to rig the Texas senate vote.

The machines aren't programmed to switch votes, it's happening to both parties. The software is inferior in that selections will revert if you button mash instead of letting each page load completely, which is obnoxious and should be fixed but does not signify a coordinated effort to rig the Texas Senate race. There's no place for this kind of inaccurate accusation in an already divisive election.

That’s not what is being described by people in Texas. It is only flipping votes for the senator. And it is only happening to people who select an all-democratic ticket. It is not happening to people voting on a republican ballot.

Untrue. Here's The Verge reporting on it. It's happening to anyone who selects a straight party ticket then rushes the pages. This has been verified repeatedly by every media organization out there. Anecdotes stating otherwise are pure propaganda.

I just linked you to a thorough report explaining it's happening to all those who vote straight party. Here's Snopes stating the same. You are not allowed to spread blatantly false misinformation. Link an unbiased source that supports your assertion, I've given you two.

If you want an unbiased perspective I suggest looking at 538. Imo they're the best when it comes to election coverage, exploring who's going to win and why. Though if you want more detailed coverage on any particular race you may need to go elsewhere, as they're more focused on large trends.

When a populist runs (in either side) they will bring out non traditional voters. That is why the polls were off. That said, the polls weren’t wrong. 538 gave Trump a 29% chance. Not 0%. Not 10%. 29% is higher than any other outlet. If there was a 29% chance the milk you were about to drink was bad. Would you just trust the 71% chance? We just got the 29% model in this case.

538 had Hillary as most likely to win. And she was most likely to win, based upon polling at that point. They weren't wrong, but there were a lot of people that weren't being honest about their support for Trump, and in the end it came down to 80k people in a couple states swinging the election his way. They weren't wrong about the outcome because they never said what the outcome was certain to be, only the likelyhood of the two options.

I mean, didn't everyone have Hillary winning? Before the polls opened, they were estimating something like a 98% chance of her winning. Trump's victory is largely considered the greatest political upset in US history.

To be fair, the 538 analysis said she had a 2 out of 3 chance of winning, and they explained that it would only take a small error in the polls to give Trump a better chance of winning than Hillary.

A lot of people saw other sites say things like Hillary had a 98% chance of winning, or mistook 538’s 2-in-3 chance for a certainty, but if you listen to their podcast and read their articles, they’ve always been clear that it meant: “if you run a simulation of the election through our model a bunch of times, Hillary will win in 2/3 of those simulations and Trump will win in 1/3 of them.”

I think a lot of people really wanted the reassurance that Hillary would win, and the media narrative during the general election was almost always that Hillary was a sure thing, even when it played up the drama of the polls tightening.

Really stressed here in my district. Our incumbent representative has called for the murder of all Muslims, and made a promotional video at Auschwitz. He needs to go. And I'm in a state where today's the primary, which is extra stressful. I feel like I've been working on this election for so long, and it still doesn't end for a month.

On the plus side, the campaign I'm employed by is very likely to have our amendment passed, and make our state slightly less racist.

California’s 48th district, encompassing the (broadly speaking) rich AF Orange County, will hopefully see Dana Rohrabacher (who appears to be deeply entrenched with Russia) lose his House seat to a young Dem, Harley Rouda. OC did swing Blue in 2016. But the 48th also has a lot of older conservative voters who might just vote for Rohrabacher based on muscle memory. Stay tuned!

Generally speaking, the south/central valley is more red (Fresno/Bakersfield), as is the inland empire and northern California at Chico and above. Sacramento is mixed, the coast is hardcore blue. I don't know what the local elections are there though.

I’ll flip back and forth between tv coverage while refreshing 538 live blog. I’ll also be checking our local and surrounding counties online, over the next few days, I’m sure I’ll look up the country precinct by precinct map.

FiveThirtyEight live blog is pretty good, just have to refresh it every now and then. Also the Crooked Media/Pod Save America crew are doing live coverage starting at 6pm EST I believe. I'm definitely tuning into that.

I'm in Virginia. We've had reports in the Chesterfield area of lines over an hour long. My poling place took about 10 min. We are cautiously optimistic, because we are seeing record turn out. However, we (fellow democrats) are also extremely anxious. Trump being elected was bad enough, it's been an unending assault since then, culminating with Kavanaugh being placed on the Supreme Court. I know most of us will be glued to the TV, starting at 7, and I know I'll be drinking.

Ga native, not Atlanta, but close enough. I early voted on Friday and it was busy. Lines out the door but quick moving. I was in and out in 20 minutes. I'm glad I went then, apparently it's insane today. Gwinnett was having some real problems with voting machines not working (a lack of power cords apparently?) In Atlanta one of the polling places was moved without any notice, even the news crew was confused. Some places had 4+ hour waits and it was raining this morning, so some folks left, hopefully they came back later.

I’m in south central KY. I went in around 12:30. Every booth (like 8) was being used and there were like 6 people in line in front of me. Overall chill for a very small voting location inside a church. The presidential election was NUTTY. I went in right at 6, as I had just gotten off work. This was nothing like today

My DC location had a longer than ideal but not horrible wait... 45 minutes? Almost the exact same amount of time as 2016, so I was expecting it to be shorter considering it's midterms, but I can't say I'm upset that so many people are voting! I wanted to vote on election day itself, but I'm definitely considering doing early voting next time just to save the on-the-way-to-work hassle.

I'm also grateful my boss values us voting just as much as we do- I can definitely see the long waits I've been seeing in other states (Georgia ugh) being a huge suppressant to people who don't have the flexibility I do.

I so appreciate our mail ballot system in California. My polling place was a ten minute walk away from home and was able to drop off the ballot in less than 30 seconds. And how easy it is to get a provisional ballot too if worse comes to worst. Makes me sad for the commenters here who don't have those options.

Early voted in Texas at around 8 am on my campus. It’s was a good mix of older people and younger people so that was good. It was early so it only took about 10-15 mins. The older woman scanning ID’s got mad at me for the 4 seconds it took me to take my ID out from my wallet lol.

I voted on the first day of early voting in Texas. I was in line for 45 minutes and thought that was a long time.
Well, the line was almost twice as long on the LAST day of early voting, and apparently they’ve been long in other places.
Being a millennial Latina woman who leans left (and it shows) and lives in Texas, I feel like everybody knew who I was going to vote for but no one tried to suppress my vote or intimidate me and the volunteers were kind.

Neighbors standing around holding coffee, buying baked goods from the fundraising tables, signing petitions, checking out the bulletin boards and used-book-sale tables at the library end of the building.

Stood on line for 2 minutes.
Paper ballot, read by a machine, overseen by 12 Justices-of-the-Peace that I know personally and voted for.
Infirm/Senior citizens arriving in carloads with volunteer drivers.

Cold and rainy, but energetic. I went mid-workday, past lunch hour so I wasn’t expecting many people to be there, but there was a good number! It was busier than I remember it being for the same time of day in the presidential primaries.

I voted in Indiana and it was chill. No lines or anything and the lady who checked my ID said she liked my Scooby Doo shirt which was odd since I'm wearing a Blink-182 shirt. They didn't have stickers though. :(

I early voted in Texas on the second day of early voting; usually during elections there are maybe one or two other people at the polling location I go to (midterm elections especially). I waited over an hour to vote this year. It's the first time I can recall ever having to wait more than 10 minutes to vote.

First time voter here!! Surprisingly the lines we’re empty. I know the lines were long at early voting as I had planned on going but was happily shocked at how long they were! I went at 10:30am today and was out before 10:50!

NYC checking in. As you can imagine my Manhattan district is pretty much solid blue, and we usually have very low turnout. This morning when I passed by my polling place en route to my office there was a line around the block!! I also work nearby so I went back to vote at lunchtime. It was calmer then but still busy! I've been hearing a lot of anecdotal evidence that turnout is higher this year, I really hope it's true.

I went at 6:30 am EST (Midwest) and there were people already coming out the door. I don’t ever remember a line like that in the past. The line stayed this long as long as I was there. There was a lot of information placed along the line re: how to know if you’re in the right place, ID you need, etc. It seemed like a well-oiled machine. No problems while I was present.

It seemed pretty chill here in Indiana. However, I did vote at 7:30am on a college campus so I'm sure it got busier later. I was hearing that in Indianapolis that there were some 2+hour lines for early voting around the city. From co-workers I've heard that this year was the first that they voted all Democrat despite usually voting more moderate in past elections. This was my first year having to go to a polling station since I'm originally from Washington state where you get a mail in ballot.

Voted in VA around 8 this morning. It was pouring outside, so while there was a steady stream of people, there wasn’t a line by any means (although our polling stations tend to get busier as the day goes on). All the volunteers were really happy to see people coming in despite the storms!

I early voted yesterday in downtown Minneapolis, and it was nice and busy! Lots of diversity among the voters in line too, although that means less in the city where it’s not so overwhelmingly white.

The line wasn’t very long; I probably waited 10 minutes. They were doing a good job moving people through, and I went between the lunch rush and the end of the work day, when it was probably the least busy.

Florida Panhandle here. My station was the liveliest I've seen it, which is interesting considering that I don't live in a major metro area and there aren't a ton of registered voters in the county to begin with. It was kind of exciting to see!

Voted in Missouri. I got there at 6:10 and had to wait 20-30 minutes to vote. I didn't have to wait that long in the last two presidential elections, if that tells you much, and I went in the afternoon both times.

Polling place in Los Angeles was very calm with no lines at 9:45AM. People were walking in very intermittently, about 1 person every few minutes. I think the initial "before work rush" was gone. People were at the booths and some of them were at the tables set up where friendly volunteers were helping them out. It was in a gym.

As a Van Nuys resident I can report much the same around 11:30. Apparently my dad in the west Valley had to put off voting till after work because the ballots hadn't been delivered by 7:30ish, though. Hopefully that kind of thing isn't widespread.

As a Van Nuys resident I can report much the same around 11:30. Apparently my dad in the west Valley had to put off voting till after work because the ballots hadn't been delivered by 7:30ish. Hopefully that kind of thing isn't widespread.

In central IL my polling place just had people coming in ones and twos, no lines or anything. But the lady informed me that this weekend and yesterday, more people were early voting than she'd ever seen before...and lady was way old so she's seen a thing or two.

But she also seemed pretty tickled pink at all of the young folks who were voting, i guess during mid terms it's pretty dull to run the polling centers, but not this year it seems. Which I'm real pleased about, Bruce Rauner can go fuck himself.

As a non American (forgive my ignorance) why is there an election now? I thought there was a general election 2 years ago? Are there people who are up for election less than 2 years after winning last time?

For reference in the uk we have a general election every so on (frequency is...complicated...but normally every 4-5 years) and all the MPs go up for election. After the results are announced, the leader of the biggest party gets first dibs at forming a government. Then there’s no national election until the next general election.

I think everybody else has most of the details covered, so I'm just going to put in one additional part that every American overlooks in their explanation to non-Americans.

Our government is designed so that it has three branches of government, and none of those branches have the absolute power over the country. That's what we refer to as checks and balances. The executive branch (President & their administration - the heads of each major department are known as Secretaries) to lead and represent, the legislative branch (Senate, House, governors, all the way down to the local school board) to create the laws, and the judicial branch (Supreme Court & our extensive court system) to corroborate whether the other two branches' actions are aligned with our Constitution and our laws. Unless one party utterly controls a majority in each of the three branches, they will have to work hard (or crookedly, that happens) and negotiate with the other party in order for a law to pass or the country to actually do something on the international scale. It's not really as simple or straightforward as my explanation, but Constitution literally lays out how each branch is supposed to be the check on the other two - which major jobs of any of the branches can be appointed by the party in power, which are elected into office by the people, the rights & abilities for both the majority in power and the minority in power, and so on and so forth.

In order to prevent one party from taking completely over during a lucky year, our Founding Fathers deliberately set up different terms for the legislative branch just in case we the people decide that our leaders are really not doing what we want them to. Unfortunately, they never foresaw that that one party would gerrymander major districts across large swathes of land in their favor nor did they ever think voting would become something a voter doesn't do.

In recent times, midterms were elections that all but the most fervent voters would ignore, but that's rapidly coming back to bite us in the butt in the last two years when Trump would do something completely unreasonable and unhinged and the other two branches we relied on to check him - refused to do so. Hence, why this election has blown up into a huge affair.

In the US, we elect our President every four years, but our Congress has different terms.

Senators are elected every six years, and 35 of our 100 Senators are in play this election.

Members of the House of of Representatives are elected every two years, so all 441 seats are up for grabs this election.

Plus, everyone has local races going on too, including for state senators and representatives. Some states have governor’s races, states that elect their judges have judicial races, some states are voting on ballot measures for issues like legalizing marijuana or banning partisan gerrymandering.

Basically, lots of races happen every two years, or every six years, or even every four years but on a different voting schedule than the Presidential elections, so we need to hold an election every two years to account for all of them.

Senators serve six-year terms and Representatives serve two-year terms. The President serves a four-year term. So, we go to the polls every two years. If the election falls within the middle of the President's four-year term (like this one), it's called a "midterm election."

In comparison to the UK, the Senate is most similar to the House of Lords as the "upper" chamber and the House is most similar to the House of Commons or the "lower" chamber. Representatives have faster term turnaround which is supposed to keep them closer to the will of their local constituents, while Senators represent an entire state and are supposed to be more focused on big-picture action. It's not exactly functioning as intended, but that is the intent.

In this election, we are voting on House and Senate membership. The next Presidential election will be in 2020, during which we will also vote on some House and Senate membership. Not all Congressmen are up for re-election in every election due to staggered terms.

We have large national elections every two years. There's the presidential election every four years, but House of Representative members need to run every two, and Senators every six. So it's an off year for president and two thirds of the Senate, but on for the rest. Now throw in state-and-local area elections, Governorships, ballot propositions, and it's a very big deal.

Sort of, but I think that makes sense for the HoR. Each district (and therefore each citizen) has one Representative so the election is fairly local. If you're not happy with the way things are going in Washington, your Representative is the person who is most in-tune with issues that affect you directly.

So it does, but it was set up this way after careful evaluation of the terms of state legislators at the time the constitution was written. 3 years was deemed too long and 1 year was too short. I was reading this in the federalist papers the other day. 2 year was chosen so that the house is super responsive to the will of the people, yet still has time to legislate.

In reality, incumbents win elections most of the time, so the vote every two years isn’t that big of a deal.

The senate, our upper house, has a six year term so they are less influenced by popular opinion and can vote how they deem fit.

Well. Yeah, that's definitely a flaw in the system. Though this election cycle started much earlier than most in the past because it's been so controversial. But they still are in washington for votes and get (some) things accomplished since you can't really legislate without the law moving through the House.

Ok. So. We've got the whole three branches of government thing going on here. The elected ones are the Executive branch (president), and the legislative branch (we've got two houses too).

President is elected every four years. Easy enough.

Our lower house, the House of Representatives ("The House," for short) is made up of nearly 450 representatives, roughly distributed by poplulation (too roughly, if you ask a lot of people, but I digress). Every one of those representatives is up for election every two years. Lotta campaigning for them.

The upper house, the Senate, is made up of 100 Senators, two from each state. They get six-year terms, but aren't all up for election at once. Only around a third are up for election this year, another third will be up in two years, the last third two years after that.

On top of that, there are state legislatures which need to be filled, and state governors and executive positions which may be elected as well. It's possible for a state to have a Republican governor, and a Democratic Secretary of State, for instance.

States set these election periods themselves, but they tend to set them so they coincide with national races, just so people show up.

It's a bit wonky, and there's definitely room for improvement, but at least it's scheduled. No snap elections here.

Our president has a four year term. The midterm elections = middle of the president's term. So the president isn't up for election/reelection, but there are a lot of other races and ballot measures happening at the federal, state, and local levels. This includes the entire House of Representatives, 1/3 of the Senate, many governorships, etc. Midterm elections typically have lower voter turnout than presidential election years,but so far reports are predicting that we'll have a record turnout for a midterm election, which is really exciting!

Someone else already said it, but I don’t mind saying it again. Midterm elections mean that the vote is NOT for the next president. Though that may sound like it’s a useless election, this is very much not the case.

The US government is a three branch system: Executive (Trump), judicial (supreme court), and legislative (house and congress). This vote is for many of the members of the legislative branch. The branch leans republican at the moment, so this is an opportunity to shift it more to the left, which limits Trump’s ability to pass legislation.

Presidential elections are held every 4 years, where you vote for your president and then also you vote for you respective senators or representatives seats from your state that represent you at a federal level (new terms or re-election terms). Each election also obviously brings your local and state respective elections as well, so all of these are tiered accordingly in the ballot.

A senator has a six year term and a representative has a 2 year term, a president serves for 4 years per term (with a limit of two terms, or 8 years, after these 8 years they cannot run again). So every 4 years you have a major presidential election along with these seats.

MIDTERM elections occur halfway through a presidents term in office as a form of a referendum and overall judgement from the governed people about how well his or her administration is doing.

Midterm elections focuses more on the senate and representative seats up for grabs, and they gauge who gains control of the the chambers of congress (senate and house of reps, Republicans control both right now) so that they can keep the president in check for the remainder of his term (2 years).

The reason why this one is crucial is because of the current political environment we are in and one that has been brought upon with the election of Donald Trump when he beat Hillary CLinton in the 2016 elections (this was a presidential election). We are halfway through Trumps first term as president, 2 years after 2016, and it is the country's chance to judge and conduct a referendum on how the president is doing, and so far the democrats are projected to win back the house (currently under republican control) and the republicans are projected to maintain control of the senate. Thre is a lot of emotion and a lot of civic dispute that has gone into these midterms after trump got elected. It is also a very big deal this year becuase we have historic voting turnouts from younger people (younger people don't usually care to vote in midterm elections) and also, there is about 263 women running for congress (a first for this country to have this many women run).

So yea, the stakes are high, and democrats are looking to wedge themselves into the disaster that is this administration so that we can at least stop some of the bleeding.

We have large national elections every two years. There's the presidential election every four years, but House of Representative members need to run every two, and Senators every six. So it's an off year for president and two thirds of the Senate, but on for the rest. Now throw in state-and-local area elections, Governorships, ballot propositions, and it's a very big deal.

Which races are ya'll most interested in? Is anyone hosting watch parties to see the results? What are you planning to do?

I really want to see what happens with Beto, on top of the races in my own state. It's just crazy to me, as a former texan who grew up hearing all the ire towards "texas democrats", the amount of momentum he's gotten.

I really want to see what happens with Beto, on top of the races in my own state. It's just crazy to me the amount of momentum he's gotten.

Phil Bredesen is not exactly the ideal progressive I would vote for, but he's huuuuuge cut above Marsha Blackburn. She's one female candidate who should never be in a position of power, because her fearmongering is based on 1) religion, 2) fake baby parts video, and 3) repeating Trump. Considering her refusal to believe that the video was proven fake and its creators sent to jail, how could I trust her to be rational on any platform when she's convinced her morality is worth more than anyone else? Besides that, we're electing a senator not Trump's eternal yes-(wo)man. So definitely hoping for Bredesen as senator.

I'm in MD and curious about Larry Hogan vs Ben Jealous for governor. I honestly felt torn at who to vote for since I didn't agree 100% with either candidate, both can be valuable.

Hogan (R) is re-running and has done a lot for expanding Medicare in MD, cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, legislating free college tuition for lower income students, is personally pro-life but supports pro-choice and even signed the country's largest birth control bill. Buuuut he's vetoed infrastructure bills and is anti-transgender rights.

Jealous (D) is champion for civil rights as former CEO+president of NAACP, and very progressive. It's refreshing. I think his free 4 year college tuition, and single tax payer healthcare are great ideas, but in practice would take a lot of time and federal approval. I like them as long term projects, but getting them started will be a challenge.

All the articles I'm reading from local sources have Hogan winning by a lot - and Maryland is deep blue. Jealous just started TV ads this week and is less known. I guess we'll see

Two of the funniest campaign videos I saw for McSally were showing a picture of Sinema wearing a rainbow tutu at Pride as a speaker, and the other was the McSally campaign admitting they lied, but saying Sinema was just too radical so they had to. 😂

I’m also watching for Prop 127. For such a sunny state, Arizona has the worst clean energy initiative and APS is fucking everyone over with high energy prices and discouraging solar panels. IN ARIZONA. EVERY house should have solar panels. And yet here we are.

I grew up in Texas and even if Beto doesn't win this is the closest we've come to electing a democratic senator in my life time. I absentee voted this year and am looking to see how long I can do that for upcoming elections (recently moved out of TX)

I’m hoping that Valdez will benefit from the fact that Texas still has straight ticket voting. I have so many Beto/Cruz and Lizzie/Culbertson ads but nothing for Valdez... not that it matters or would change how I voted but it may matter to others.

I’m wondering if Valdez will benefit from the hype generated for Beto- if you’re a democrat in a voting booth and you went there specifically to vote for O’Rourke, then chances are when it comes to the governor’s race you’re going to cast for Valdez. I don’t think she will dislodge Abbott, but I’m interested in the numbers nonetheless.

Also a Texan! And I can’t tell you how much I want a Hispanic Lesbian for governor. It would be great to representation for these minority groups.

I'm in the Midwest, so I'm following the KS and IA governor races very closely. There are a few congressional races in each of those states that I have some modicum of hope for (ousting incumbent Rs) and the MO Senate race should be a real nail-biter.

Mostly I'm just hoping that my state (KS) doesn't end up electing Kris Kobach, who has promised to double down on the fiscal policies which sent our state careening into financial crisis six years ago. I'll be at a networking event then painting class while the first of the results roll in, so I'm hoping to be nice and distracted while the news rolls in.

I know it's very wishful thinking to hope a D wins in Oklahoma, but we had the teacher strikes this year and it doesn't seem that people have forgotten, the energy and debate is very different. My mom has voted straight Republican her entire life (sigh), but this election she's voting for at least two democrats one of which is Edmondson for Governor.

Mary Fallin has been one of the worst governors in entire United States and Stitt seems to be her clone or probably worse, I'm scared that our schools and state in general can't handle any more years under someone with policies like Stitt. If he gets elected I don't see how our state will be anywhere near operational, let alone thriving, for at least another generation. I don't want to move and contribute to the brain drain that Oklahoma already suffers from, but I'm a young single recent college grad and if I'm ever going to live in state that's got its shit together it seems like it's now or never, if Stitt wins.

I'm watching Heller vs Rosen closely here in NV. Dean Heller is a good politician, he's well liked by most people here, he's bucked the national party line on issues we Nevadans care about. He actually cares about this state. It irks me to no end that Rosen fundraised out of state in California and New York to take his seat. It will be a genuine loss for NV if he gets pushed out.

I'm watching Beto, but I know better than to be optimistic at this point.

Here in NC I'm watching our proposed constitutional amendments, all of which are designed to trick voters into writing the Republicans a blank legislative check to destroy our checks and balances for decades, and I'm watching our NC Supreme Court seat election, where the incumbent has twice voted for gerrymandered districts to disenfranchise voters and the opposition is well-respected civil rights attorney.

I voted majority red and one blue. I'm not extremely conservative, I'm not a feminist, I'm not Trump worshiper and not a liberal extremist. But I truly do not believe the message of voting red is basically horrible for women. Can someone elaborate (CALMLY please) why you believe it's so negative for women? I'm interested in hearing thoughts said to me in not a screaming manner. I do my research and still do not believe this so I truly am curious what I'm missing, if anything.

I also want to note that Trump's 'grab em by the pussy' comment did not offend me whatsoever. I have talked way worse about dudes with my gfs. Also, if you believe Trump is the worst there is with that type of behavior, I beg of you to look into the decades and decades of corruption, prostitution rings, underage sex that other men politicians have partaken in. I can't believe how much Bill Clinton gets away with. He has multiple women who've accused him of rape. Why don't we believe them? There is a half white/half black male in his 20s-30s who claims Bill raped his mom and that he is his father - and he looks just like Bill. So I really cannot stand the hypocrisy these days.

Bill Clinton is not in office. Trump is. If you're horrified by all of Clinton's accusations, why not Trump's? If you "can't stand the hypocrisy," and actually are horrified by the specter of sexual predators in office, then stop engaging in it.

Well Bill was in office when he got a blow job from his intern and everyone was over it in a short amount of time. Not to mention people still love him. And also Because I believe a lot of the accusations against Trump are false. I don't understand why you all have never held anyone else accountable or why those victims were never in the media.

Honest question, were you alive or paying attention in the 90s, because you're saying things that are demonstrably untrue.

His lawsuits with Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers were constant headlines. And obviously Bill was "held accountable;" he was subject to a 6 year investigation and the House introduced articles of impeachment. He was fined and disbarred over it. How is that not facing any consequences?

And Trump is currently in office. Feel free to take the time to apply that thinking to what consequences you think Trump should face along those same lines.

I was alive in the 90s. I've also always had an obsession with the Clintons and everything they've been involved in. So no, in noway was the backlash the same. What do you think Trump actually did to get this daily criticism? Feel free to apply what thinking?? Is Trump getting blow jobs form interns? Cause I certainly will apply that thinking to him then.

If you don't think the Starr report was at least as big as the Mueller investigation then either you were a toddler during his tenure or you have not been reading any accurate sources.

Did Trump pay off multiple porn stars, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, to suppress their stories during the 2016 election? Yes, clearly. That is documented.

How many of Trump's campaign advisers and cabinet members have now pled guilty to criminal and conspiracy charges by now? Michael Flynn? Carter Page? Rick Gates? Paul Manafort is on trial now, to name a few?

Having consensual sex with someone and then creating a payoff/NDA isn't a crime though. Do I think it's normal in my world? No. But it's normal for known people who are doing shady things. I don't supporting cheating obviously - but that is not a crime. I don't believe you have provided any critical thought or facts. If you're looking for me to document for you the decades of covered-up abuse and corruption from people in office, I don't even know where to start and I think you're capable of finding it. I'm tapping out of this cause it's boring and unhelpful. Never factual and always hypocritical and unproductive from that side.

You reject documented facts, you've made false assertions, you play "whataboutism" and you accuse people who make counterpoints of debating in bad faith. The things you have said , while common talking points for the Breitbart crowd, are manifestly and provably untrue.

Frankly, to even make some of the claims you have would not only require ignoring the accurate historical record in the case of Clinton, but also recent events concerning Trump. There have literally been indictments and guilty pleas in the last year, and either you are pretending they haven't happened because they don't support your argument, or you're genuinely unaware that they happened or of their relevance, in which case the validity of your viewpoint is seriously in question.

Clearly either you aren't operating in reality, or your purpose was never to have an objective debate in the first place.

Wait wtf? I was making a comparison for reference. My original comment was not that deep I was looking for opinions and insight from other women because I wanted to understand the disconnect. So way to go trying to jump down another woman's throat because YOU took something the wrong way. I CLEARLY stated I don't like politicians in general, and just do not understand why Trump is the monster WHEN THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WAY WORSE FIGURES IN OFFICE. Idk what the hell you missed. Act normal. Like woooah the hypocrisy is real.

Look, come up with two numbers, since you're "so obsessed with the Clintons" and you've read "so many" articles about them, you should already know it. How long was the Whitewater investigation and how much did it cost taxpayers? Two very simple numbers.

And compare those to the current Mueller investigation. How long has it been going and how much has it cost?

I feel like you’re not really getting the true, engaging dialogue you’re looking for here and I want to give it to you. I’m currently short on time so I’m going to try to overview it, but I could honestly go back and forth for days.

For background, I’m a liberal Democrat all for democratic socialism. This doesn’t mean that I think people shouldn’t have to work for what they have, but that living in a society means that individuals should have a safety net to land in should shit hit the fan. We need balance and regulations, but we shouldn’t flat out not help people when they’re starving, sick, suffering, etc.

For me, conservatism and republican thinking have proven to go hand and hand by today’s standards. I’m not so much against fiscal conservatism and trying to work together in that sense, but I am strongly unwilling to compromise to socially conservative views. Social conservatives, at least from my perspective, tend to be very religious and want to really entangle religion with government. I don’t mind people wanting to personally follow religion, but I am not down to make gay marriage illegal, I’m not down to make abortion illegal, I believe sex education needs to be widespread and accurate, that birth control should be more affordable and accessible, we should not be denying climate change and accepting “alternative facts,” etc. There are so many other issues I could touch on (race-related issues, I’m looking at you), but those are some of the more religiously driven topics relevant to why I feel like republican representatives should not be in office.

People literally came here for religious freedom, and now we’re trying to back an administration pushing legislation based on their own personal religion that ultimately harms others.

Many of these things are directly related not only to women’s health, but if we’re being fully transparent, I feel voting red in today’s current climate is directly dangerous to people in general - not just women.

I don’t believe that all republicans are evil or religiously driven in any sense, but those in office right now are working on those terms and that just HAS to be stopped until the Republican Party comes back to facts and doing what’s best for the people.

In response to your final paragraph specifically: I would truly love for every single Democrat accused of sexual harassment, rape, etc. to be investigated as well. People on both sides of the spectrum have gotten away with bullshit like this for far too long and it’s become the norm. It’s just not okay no matter who is doing it. Period.

Good for you truly trying to answer the question without the generic Response any moderate/conservative knows it coming. Hopefully more people like you and original guy asking question can come together in civility unlike our politicians and media today.

I actually agree with a lot of what you said. I said earlier I'm not even die-hard Republican (personally I don't like parties or many politicians) I happen to like these particular republicans today and one democrat. I just am trying to understand why women feel it's dangerous for us to vote red because I haven't found that. Also I am trying to understand why people think Trump is the biggest woman-hater that has ever lived. I'm not, whatsoever, one of those 100% Trump people. But because I've always deep dove into the corruption of beloved politicians, it's annoying that Trump is the ultimate monster because there are SO many prominent people who deserve this way more. I also do not like applying religious views to politics. I am pro-choice but when I found out abortions were being done up to 6 months, sorry but I agree that should not have been legal.

I am just someone who has always hated the disgusting corruption in the White House (my ultimate disgusts would be the Franklin Cover Up) and it blows my mind that NOW we are all in danger of corruption, and women's rights, and victim blaming etc. Like where has everyone been? That's my whole point. Thanks for the only normal comment of the bunch

Just because you weren’t insulted by Trump’s statement doesn’t mean it wasn’t insulting. And just because you talk worse doesn’t mean that it’s how the president of the US should talk. You’re not running for president. All you have to do to understand how offensive this is to a huge portion of the population is the old “Republican Emotional Test”: would you like anyone talking about your girlfriend/mother/sister this way? Probably not.

I’d say piggy backing off your initial question, Republicans just don’t care about people period. They are entirely and openly beholden to corporations. Their desire to repeal roe v wade which has been settled law for 45 years should answer your question as to why they’re bad for women, but they don’t even truly believe in that. It’s just to satisfy the single issue voters.
Everything you may agree with republicans on when it comes to social issues is an afterthought to them. Why do you think there’s no grass roots republican campaigns? The majority of republican donations come from
Just 7 people. Republicans overwhelmingly support citizen’s United. These are corporations, not people.

Furthermore historically, since Truman every single republican government has run up a deficit that Democrat governments then have to untangle and fix. You’re a man of research, you can look in to that yourself. They’re bad for people, they’re bad for the country, and they’re bad for businesses. They’re only good for CEOs who donate to them to ensure that they stay good for them.

Why do you think most republican civil servants go in to the private sector after Congress? Because they’re only trying to enrich themselves. That’s not government. That’s business. You simply cannot run government like business because its not supposed to be run like business. You can’t throw peoples civil liberties under the bus because they don’t jibe with your view of the world. That’s the most unamerican thing i can think of. Republicans are oligarchs and at the end of the day they will not ever help you.

You can find Democrats or liberals annoying, that’s your prerogative, but they’re actually actively trying to make America a better place. Not enrich corporate overlords. I guess the big difference is voting D may actually end up helping you, voting R never will.

You truly believe that democrats are any different? You truly think some of the most powerful Democratic families are in corrupted deals and schemes with corporations and especially pharma and wall street? Do you know anything about the recent DNC scandal? Probably not because that type of news is not just fed to you on snap chat.

To be honest, I have always been so against politicians. The disgusting corruption that happens FROM ALL PARTIES is sickening. But it absolutely blows my mind that people are feeding into this idea that just now there is corruption, or just now there is lack of respect for women. Where have you people been? It's both parties... and my point is whatever yall are accusing and freaking out about with Trump - why have there never been protests and marches in the past? Trump is the LEAST of these people that you should worry about.

Trump is the first president to try and profit from the presidency. This is not how the US government is supposed to function. The Republicans are not holding him accountable to the emoluments clause of the constitution. See the court cases that are just starting for an example. http://fortune.com/2018/11/02/judge-orders-trump-to-provide-dc-hotel-evidence-foreign-payments/
There are 3 branches of the government. The presidency should be checked by the legislature and the courts. We are fortunate that a court is still holding up their end of the bargain. Voters should vote for Dems because they will uphold this end of the bargain too.

See here’s the thing, I didn’t insult you once, and in your first paragraph you’re throwing shade at me. Do you actually want a calm discourse? Because you’re the one losing your cool. You are acting similar to most Republicans in that the standard you hold others to is not the same standard you hold yourself to however you are openly critical of those who fail to meet this standard.

Of course I know all about that. I referenced the Paradise Papers for God’s sake, I’m pretty well versed on all this. The DNC was and is wreck and the people have spoken and have begun electing progressive candidates who have moved away from the DNC. The same thing is not happening with the Republican Party. Their awfulness was revealed and folks doubled down on it.

It sounds like you’ll never be happy because tre change that comes now didn’t come soon enough for you, yet confusingly it also doesn’t seem to matter to you. I don’t know if i or anyone can reach you because your logic doesn’t make sense beyond an emotional desire to just see people suffer because they weren’t quick enough.

I’d say the main difference between now and Clinton is about 25 years.

The entire political system is. This isn't a Republican issue, Democrats get just as many corporate contributions.

Their desire to repeal roe v wade which has been settled law for 45 years

Kavanaugh has openly said on numerous occasions that Roe v Wade is settled law, and no Republicans are campaigning on repealing Roe v Wade.

Why do you think there’s no grass roots republican campaigns?

Where do you get this?

The majority of republican donations come from Just 7 people

Citation needed.

Republicans overwhelmingly support citizen’s United

As do most Americans who understand the implications this decision has for free speech.

You can find Democrats or liberals annoying, that’s your prerogative, but they’re actually actively trying to make America a better place.

If you honestly believe that Republicans aren't also trying to make America a better place, and just have different beliefs on how to accomplish this than Democrats, and are just evil demon monkeys, perhaps you don't fully understand the conservative position.

I agree. I believe we have fundamentally different views on how to make this country work for everyone. I believe I understand the conservative position well enough, and I believe that it does not work for the majority of this country moving forward.

I believe we have fundamentally different views on how to make this country work for everyone.

I agree on this as well, but this contradicts everything you said in your previous post where you assert that Republicans are evil overloads who are just trying to enrich themselves at the expense of the people.

That’s what I believe. I can’t think of a single legislative agenda that’s come from this congress that would benefit the average working American. My main evidence is the resistance to raising the minimum wage. I cannot see any way in how resisting this benefits the average working American. Furthermore the tax cut did very little for those making under 60k a year, which is the majority of Americans. And I believe that multiple instances have arose over the past two years in particular that align them with corporations over people, with the exception of the Christian religious right.

I can’t think of a single legislative agenda that’s come from this congress that would benefit the average working American.

Tax cuts.

Edit: You edited your post so I will edit my response to address your change:

My main evidence is the resistance to raising the minimum wage. I cannot see any way in how resisting this benefits the average working American.

Raising the minimum wage prices a lot of people out of jobs. Keeping the minimum wage where it is (or even eliminating it completely) greatly benefits low skilled laborers who would otherwise be unemployed.

Furthermore the tax cut did very little for those making under 60k a year, which is the majority of Americans

Completely untrue. A 60k salary was previously taxed at 25%, now 22%. That's $1,800 in savings for a $60k earner. $1.8k in the pocket is a LOT for a $60k earner. And that's not even mentioning that the average American has a 401k account, and the tax bill has worked wonders on retirement account growth.

Tax cuts did not benefit the majority of Americans making under 60k a year which is the majority of Americans.

And wages have not gone up, most of the money was used by corporation for buy backs. Further more, with complete control one lousy thing was all they were able to pass is more illustrative of how non beneficial they are.

I would love to hear a rebuttal on how tax cuts benefit average Americans.

I agree on this as well, but this contradicts everything you said in your previous post where you assert that Republicans are evil overloads who are just trying to enrich themselves at the expense of the people.

How are you interpreting that statement? Because I think that is true in the way the other poster originally framed it when you consider it as talking about those in power who are Republicans and the agendas they are pushing, and NOT referring to the individuals in the Republican voter base.

Trump has done far worse things and is on par or worse than Bill Clinton, but I doubt you'd see it that way. That and your comment about not being insulted by Trumps grab em by the pussy comment speaks volumes. It really screams that you'll ignore what your guy does, but happily point out what the other guy does to cast him in a bad light.

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It sums up the general Republican mindset for me. "Well I wasn't effected, so it doesn't matter." "My candidate isn't as bad as yours."

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Which is why Republicans as a whole are generally terrible. Sure, I know plenty of Republicans that seem like decent people but when you boil down a few things they're rather shitty. Not people I ever want in my social circle.

It's all about self serving interests and not- Actively helping society at all. Never trying to understand how things could effect and harm others, or willfully ignoring things that harm others, turning a general blind eye to the suffering of others as long as that profit margin is met. That and appeasing the Christian right to try and shove their morals down everyone else's throat.

Because Trump gets away with saying that he doesn’t really care if Ford was raped and the result is no republicans protesting it. Any attack on women is met with either victim blaming or ignoring entirely.

I mean that's a stretch. Because there's a lot of people who do not believe here. Her main "witness" took everything she said back in an interview with an NBC reporter, who was getting very irritated that he was not getting the type of response he wanted.

But so Trump is to blame for all of the victim blaming and/or ignoring? I mean he hasn't even been in office that long, so we can't hold him responsible for when that was occurring before. So it just doesn't make sense to me I'm sorry.

And this has always been a passionate issue for me for a long time - of women not being heard, getting blamed, brushing it under the rug. It happens in sports, colleges, prominent figures etc. So I cannot wrap my head around how Trump gets the backlash for all of this. Makes no sense.

He’s not the only one to blame (or else no one would stand for it), but he is by far the most prominent inciter of this type of language. My argument is that voting red (and therefore supporting Trump since Republicans support him) is anti-women because of quotes like this. It’s been happening for a while (and obviously not OK), but Trump is only pushing it further as opposed to rolling it back.

Edit: Also, did you read the article? Trump isn’t saying “was Ford raped by Kavanaugh” or even “was she raped at all?” He is saying “whether or not she was raped doesn’t matter since we got Kavanaugh on the supreme court.”

I don't really know how to explain to you why trump is terrible for women beyond what he's already said and done. And your response to that is already well that stuff has gone on for decades, so it's cool. Followed by yet another complaint about the Clintons.

So how bout this...since the dude you voted for and his cronies took to the oval office, we've seen the normalization of hate. It's ok to hate women. It's ok to hate non-whites. It's ok to hate non-christians. It's ok to hate gays. It's ok to hate "other." You don't have to be a "liberal extremist" to recognize a pattern of escalating violence against the groups I just mentioned. That's not fake news, it's the new American reality. And you voted FOR this?

Well I totally disagree there, I actually believe the opposite in that the extreme liberals have made it seem okay to hate white people, or anyone who thinks even slightly differently. So we will never find common ground here.

It was a comparison of the current president to previous president that everyone is most familiar with. So I don't know where you got lost. But I am done with this unintelligent conversation. I commented to ask for legitimate insight but you all (except for one normal person) could not help yourselves but pop off, as expected but I was hoping for normal conversation. I think I got what I needed here.

I voted Democrat because I don't believe Republicans have a shred of moral decency left. I have plenty of conservative beliefs, but I refuse to vote for a party that hates women and LGBT people and excuses sexual abusers. There may be plenty of normal, moderate Republicans out there, but they're not standing up for what's right.

It's been 15 minutes obviously the most articulated answers are not gonna pop up first. Your reaction doesn't help either, it does not seem like you're actually looking to be convinced, but rather that you're seeking a reason to be offended and complain about liberals.

You just said you voted but are just now trying to have people change your opinion and/or like your opinion can be changed? Just exhausting and to be honest slightly annoying. Ask this same question yesterday and you’d have a lot less people rolling their eyes at you.

I’m actually historically a Republican, however going into each election I re-evaluate, and I voted for Beto in TX for early voting (democrat for the first ever mid-term elections in my voting history). You’re an example of how I cringe at some “extremist conservatives” or whatever the equivalent is to your attempt at an insult was.... I don’t need people on reddit to shape my opinion, I do my research way before I vote.

I’m actually a Republican! You’re pointing out why I cringe at some “extremist conservatives” or whatever the equivalent is to your attempt at an insult was....

I also do not have a problem with liberal thinking but I have a problem with extreme liberals just like I have a problem with extreme Trumpist. They are two additional parties to me. I was truly just trying to hear other opinions in a decent human being type of delivery.